Rene Guenon english pdf

The Reign of Quantity
SC the Signs of the Times

Rene Guenon

COLLECTED WORKS

p F RENE GUENON

THE REIGN OF QUANTITY
AND THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES

RENE GUENON

THE REIGN
OF QUANTITY

AND THE SIGNS
OF THE TIMES

Translator
Lord Northbourne

SOPHIA PERENNIS

HILLSDALE NY

Originally published in French as
Le Regtte de la Quantite et les Signes des Temps
© Editions Gallimard 1945
Fourth, revised edition 2001
Second Impression 2004
Third edition, Sophia Perennis, Ghent, 1995
Second edition, Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1972
First edition, Luzac & Co., London, 1953
English translation © Sophia Perennis 2001
All rights reserved

Series editor: James R. Wetmore

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, without permission

For information, address:

Sophia Perennis, P.O. Box 611
Hillsdale NY 12529
sophiaperennis.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Guenon, Rene

[R£gne de la quantity et les signes des temps. English]

The reign of quantity and the signs of the times / Rene Guenon ;
translated by Lord Northbourne — 4th, rev. ed.

p. cm. — (Collected works of Rene Guenon)

Includes index.

isbn 0 900588 67 5 (pbk: alk. paper)
isbn o 900588 68 3 (cloth: alk. paper)

1. Materialism — Miscellanea. 2. Civilization, Modern — Philosophy -
Miscellanea. I. Title.

BD701.G813 2001
291.2 — dc2i

2001001097

CONTENTS

Editorial Note xi
Introduction 1

1 Quality and Quantity n

2 Materia Signata Quantitate 16

3 Measure and Manifestation 23

4 Spatial Quantity and Qualified Space 31

5 The Qualitative Determinations of Time 38

6 The Principle of Individuation 45

7 Uniformity against Unity 49

8 Ancient Crafts and Modern Industry 55

9 The Twofold Significance of Anonymity 62

10 The Illusion of Statistics 68

11 Unity and ‘Simplicity’ 74

12 The Hatred of Secrecy 82

13 The Postulates of Rationalism 89

14 Mechanism and Materialism 96

15 The Illusion of ‘Ordinary Life’ 101

16 The Degeneration of Coinage 107

17 The Solidification of the World 113

18 Scientific Mythology and Popularization 120

19 The Limits of History and Geography 128

20 From Sphere to Cube 137

21 Cain and Abel 144

22

The Significance of Metallurgy 152

23

Time changed into Space 159

24

Toward Dissolution 165

25

The Fissures in the Great Wall 172

26

Shamanism and Sorcery 177

2 7

Psychic Residues 185

28

The Successive Stages in Anti-Traditional Action 191

29

Deviation and Subversion 197

30

The Inversion of Symbols 202

31

Tradition and Traditionalism 208

32

Neo-Spiritualism 215

33

Contemporary Intuitionism 220

34

The Misdeeds of Psychoanalysis 227

35

The Confusion of the Psychic and the Spiritual 235

36

Pseudo-Initiation 241

37

The Deceptiveness of ‘Prophecies’ 252

38

From Anti-Tradition to Counter-Tradition

260

39

The Great Parody: or Spirituality Inverted

267

40

The End of a World 275
Index 281

EDITORIAL NOTE

The past century has witnessed an erosion of earlier cultural
values as well as a blurring of the distinctive characteristics of the
world’s traditional civilizations, giving rise to philosophic and moral
relativism, multiculturalism, and dangerous fundamentalist reac-
tions. As early as the 1920s, the French metaphysician Rene Guenon
(1886-1951) had diagnosed these tendencies and presented what he
believed to be the only possible reconciliation of the legitimate, al-
though apparently conflicting, demands of outward religious forms,
‘exoterisms’, with their essential core, ‘esoterism’. His works are char-
acterized by a foundational critique of the modern world coupled
with a call for intellectual reform; a renewed examination of meta-
physics, the traditional sciences, and symbolism, with special refer-
ence to the ultimate unanimity of all spiritual traditions; and finally,
a call to the work of spiritual realization. Despite their wide influ-
ence, translation of Guenon’s works into English has so far been
piecemeal. The Sophia Perennis edition is intended to fill the urgent
need to present them in a more authoritative and systematic form. A
complete list of Guenon’s works, given in the order of their original
publication in French, follows this note.

The Reign of Quantity gives a concise but comprehensive view of
the present state of affairs in the world, as it appears from the point
of view of the ‘ancient wisdom’, formerly common both to the East
and to the West, but now almost entirely lost sight of. The author
indicates with his fabled clarity and directness the precise nature of
the modern deviation, and devotes special attention to the develop-
ment of modern philosophy and science, and to the part played by
them, with their accompanying notions of progress and evolution,
in the formation of the industrial and democratic society which
we now regard as ‘normal’. Guenon sees history as a descent from
Form (or Quality) toward Matter (or Quantity); but after the Reign
of Quantity — modern materialism and the ‘rise of the masses’ —

XII THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

Guenon predicts a reign of ‘inverted quality’ just before the end of
the age: the triumph of the ‘counter-initiation, the kingdom of Anti-
christ. This text is considered the magnum opus among Guenon’s
texts of civilizational criticism, as is Symbols of Sacred Science among
his studies on symbols and cosmology, and Man and His Becoming
according to the Vedanta among his more purely metaphysical works.

Guenon often uses words or expressions set off in ‘scare quotes’.
To avoid clutter, single quotation marks have been used throughout.
As for transliterations, Guenon was more concerned with phonetic
fidelity than academic usage. The system adopted here reflects the
views of scholars familiar both with the languages and Guenon’s
writings. Brackets indicate editorial insertions, or, within citations,
Guenon’s additions. Wherever possible, references have been up-
dated, and English editions substituted.

The present translation is a revised version of that made by Lord
Northbourne for the original edition, and the publisher would like
to thank Christopher James Northbourne, the translators’s son, for
his help, encouragement, and permission to work from his father’s
text. For additional editorial help and proofreading, thanks go to
John Ahmed Herlihy, Brian Latham, and Allan Dewar; and for Ara-
bic transliterations, to Prof S.H. Nasr. A special debt of thanks is
owed to Cecil Bethell, who revised and proofread the text at several
stages and provided the index. Cover design by Michael Buchino
and Gray Henry, based on a drawing of a shell disk preserved in the
Peabody Museum, by Guenon’s friend and collaborator Ananda K.
Coomaraswamy.

THE WORKS

OF RENE GUENON

Introduction to the Study
of the Hindu Doctrines (1921)

Theosophy: History of
a Pseudo -Religion (1921)

The Spiritist Fallacy (1923)

East and West (1924)

Man and His Becoming
according to the Vedanta (1925)

The Esoterism of Dante (1925)

The Crisis of the Modern World

(1927)

The King of the World (1927)

Spiritual Authority and
Temporal Power (1929)

The Symbolism of the Cross (1931)

The Multiple States of the Being
(1932)

The Reign of Quantity and
the Signs of the Times (1945)

Perspectives on Initiation (1946)

The Great Triad (1946)

The Metaphysical Principles of
the Infinitesimal Calculus (1946)

Initiation and Spiritual
Realization (1952)

Insights into Christian
Esoterism (1954)

Symbols of Sacred Science (1962)

Studies in Freemasonry
and the Compagnonnage (1964)

Studies in Hinduism (1966)

Traditional Forms and Cosmic
Cycles (1970)

Insights into Islamic Esoterism
and Taoism (1973)

Reviews (1973)

Miscellanea (1976)

INTRODUCTION

Since the time when The Crisis of the Modern World was writ-
ten, the march of events has only served to confirm, all too com-
pletely and all too quickly, the validity of the outlook on the present
situation that was adopted in that book, although the subject mat-
ter was then dealt with independently of all preoccupation with
immediate ‘actuality’ as well as of any intention toward a vain and
barren ‘critique’. Indeed, it goes without saying that considerations
of that order are worth nothing except insofar as they represent an
application of principles to certain particular circumstances; and it
may also be noted in passing that if those who have formed the tru-
est judgment of the errors and insufficiencies of the mentality of
our times have generally maintained toward them a purely negative
attitude, or have only departed from that attitude to propose virtu-
ally insignificant remedies quite inadequate to cope with the grow-
ing disorder in all domains, it is because a knowledge of true
principles has been just as lacking in their case as it has been in the
case of those who have persisted in admiring a so-called ‘progress’
and in deluding themselves as to its fatal outcome.

Besides, even from a purely disinterested and ‘theoretical’ point of
view, it is not enough to denounce errors and to show them up for
what they really are; useful though that may be, it is still more
interesting and instructive to explain them, that is to say to investi-
gate how and why they have come about; for everything that has any
kind of existence, even error, has necessarily its reason for existence,
and disorder itself must in the end find its place among the elements
of universal order. Thus, whereas the modern world considered in
itself is an anomaly and even a sort of monstrosity, it is no less true
that, when viewed in relation to the whole historical cycle of which
it is a part, it corresponds exactly to the conditions pertaining to a
certain phase of that cycle, the phase that the Hindu tradition speci-
fies as the final period of the Kali-Yuga. It is these conditions, arising

2 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

as a consequence of the development of the cycle’s manifestation,
that have determined its peculiar characteristics, and from this
point of view it is clear that the present times could not be otherwise
than they actually are. Nonetheless, it is evident that if disorder is to
be seen as an element of order, or if error is to be reduced to a par-
tial and distorted aspect of some truth, it is necessary to place one-
self above the level of the contingencies of the domain to which that
disorder and those errors as such belong; similarly, in order to grasp
the true significance of the modern world in the light of the cyclical
laws governing the development of the present terrestrial humanity,
it is necessary to be entirely detached from the mentality that is its
special characteristic and to avoid being affected by it in the least
degree. This is the more evident in that the said mentality implies of
necessity, and as it were by definition, a complete ignorance of the
laws in question, as well as of all other truths which, being more or
less directly derived from transcendent principles, are essentially
part of traditional knowledge; all characteristically modern concep-
tions are, consciously or unconsciously, a direct and unqualified
denial of that knowledge.

For some time past the author has had it in mind to follow up the
Crisis of the Modern World with a work of a more strictly ‘doctrinal’
character, in order to set out with more precision certain aspects of
the explanation of the present period given in the earlier book, in
conformity with the strictly traditional point of view, which will
always be adhered to; in the present case it is, for the very reasons
already given, not merely the only valid point of view, but it might
even be said to be the only point of view possible, since no such
explanation could be imagined apart from it. Various circumstances
have delayed the realization of that project up till now, but this is
beside the point for anyone who is sure that everything that must
happen necessarily happens in its due time, and often in ways both
unforeseen and completely independent of our will. The feverish
haste with which our contemporaries approach everything they do
is powerless against this law and can produce only agitation and dis-
order, that is to say effects which are wholly negative; but would
these people still be ‘moderns’ if they were capable of understanding
the advantages of following the indications given by circumstances

INTRODUCTION 3

that, far from being ‘fortuitous’ — as their ignorance leads them to
suppose — are basically nothing but more or less particularized
expressions of the general order, an order at the same time both
human and cosmic, with which we are compelled to integrate our-
selves either voluntarily or involuntarily?

Among the features characteristic of the modern mentality, the
tendency to bring everything down to an exclusively quantitative
point of view will be taken from now on as the central theme of this
study. This tendency is most marked in the ‘scientific’ conceptions
of recent centuries; but it is almost as conspicuous in other do-
mains, notably in that of social organization — so much so that,
with one reservation the nature and necessity of which will appear
hereafter, our period could almost be defined as being essentially
and primarily the ‘reign of quantity’. This characteristic is chosen in
preference to any other, not solely nor even principally because it
is one of the most evident and least contestable, but above all
because of its truly fundamental nature, for reduction to the quan-
titative is strictly in conformity with the conditions of the cyclic
phase at which humanity has now arrived; and also because it is the
particular tendency in question that leads logically to the lowest
point of the ‘descent’ that proceeds continuously and with ever-
increasing speed from the beginning to the end of a Manvantara,
that is to say throughout the whole course of the manifestation of a
humanity such as ours. This ‘descent’, as has often been pointed out
on previous occasions, is but a gradual movement away from the
principle, which is necessarily inherent in any process of manifesta-
tion; in our world, by reason of the special conditions of existence
to which it is subject, the lowest point takes on the aspect of pure
quantity, deprived of every qualitative distinction; it goes without
saying that this point represents strictly speaking a limit, and that is
why it is not legitimate to speak otherwise than of a ‘tendency’, for,
during the actual course of the cycle, the limit can never be reached
since it is as it were outside and beneath any existence, either real-
ized or even realizable.

We come now to a matter of particular importance which must
be established from the outset, both in order to avoid possible mis-
conceptions and in order to dispose in advance of a possible source

4 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

of delusion, namely the fact that, by virtue of the law of analogy, the
lowest point is as it were the obscure reflection or the inverted
image of the highest point, from which follows the consequence,
paradoxical only in appearance, that the most complete absence of
all principle implies a sort of ‘counterfeit’ of the principle itself,
something that has been expressed in a ‘theological’ form in the
words ‘satan is the ape of God.’ A proper appreciation of this fact
can help greatly toward the understanding of some of the darkest
enigmas of the modern world, enigmas which that world itself
denies because though it carries them in itself it is incapable of per-
ceiving them, and because this denial is an indispensable condition
for the maintenance of the special mentality whereby it exists. If our
contemporaries as a whole could see what it is that is guiding them
and where they are really going, the modern world would at once
cease to exist as such, for the ‘rectification’ that has often been
alluded to in the author’s other works could not fail to come about
through that very circumstance; on the other hand, since this ‘recti-
fication’ presupposes arrival at the point at which the ‘descent’ is
completely accomplished, where ‘the wheel stops turning’ — at least
for the instant marking the passage from one cycle to another — it is
necessary to conclude that, until this point is actually attained, it is
impossible that these things should be understood by men in gen-
eral, but only by the small number of those who are destined to pre-
pare, in one way or in another, the germs of the future cycle. It is
scarcely necessary to say that everything that the author has set out
in this book and elsewhere is intended to be addressed exclusively to
these few, without any concern for the inevitable incomprehension
of the others; it is true that these others are, and still must be for a
certain time to come, an immense majority, but then it is precisely
in the ‘reign of quantity’, and only then, that the opinion of the
majority can claim to be taken into consideration at all.

However that may be, it is particularly desirable before going any
further to apply the principle outlined above to a more limited
sphere than that to which it has just been applied. It must serve to
dispel any confusion between the point of view of traditional sci-
ence and that of profane science, especially as certain outward simi-
larities may appear to lend themselves to such confusion. These

INTRODUCTION 5

similarities often arise only from inverted correspondences; for
whereas traditional science envisages essentially the higher of the
corresponding terms and allows no more than a relative value to the
lower term, and then only by virtue of its correspondence with the
higher term, profane science on the other hand only takes account of
the lower term, and being incapable of passing beyond the domain
to which it is related, claims to reduce all reality to it. Thus, to take
an example directly connected with the subject of this book, the
Pythagorean numbers, envisaged as the principles of things, are by
no means numbers as understood by the moderns, whether
mathematicians or physicists, just as principial immutability is by
no means the immobility of a stone, nor true unity the uniformity of
beings denuded of all their qualities; nonetheless, because numbers
are in question in both cases, the partisans of an exclusively
quantitative science have not failed to reckon the Pythagoreans as
among their ‘precursors’. So as not unduly to anticipate develop-
ments to follow, only this much need be said here, namely that this is
but one more instance of the fact that the profane sciences of which
the modern world is so proud are really and truly only the
degenerate ‘residues’ of the ancient traditional sciences, just as
quantity itself, to which they strive to reduce everything, is, when
considered from their special point of view, no more than the
‘residue’ of an existence emptied of everything that constituted its
essence; thus these pretended sciences, by leaving aside or even
intentionally eliminating all that is truly essential, clearly prove
themselves incapable of furnishing the explanation of anything
whatsoever.

Just as the traditional science of numbers is quite a different thing
from the profane arithmetic of the moderns, including all the alge-
braic or other extensions of which the latter is capable, so there is
also a ‘sacred geometry’ no less profoundly different from the ‘aca-
demic’ science nowadays designated by the same name. There is no
need to insist at length on this point, for those who have read the
author’s earlier works, in particular The Symbolism of the Cross, will
call to mind many references to the symbolical geometry in ques-
tion, and they will have been able to see for themselves how far it
lends itself to the representation of realities of a higher order, at least

6 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

to the extent that those realities are capable of being represented in a
form accessible to the senses; and besides, are not geometrical forms
fundamentally and necessarily the very basis of all figured or
graphic’ symbolism, from that of the alphabetical and numerical
characters of all languages to that of the most complex and appar-
ently strange initiatic yantras ? It is easy to understand that this kind
of symbolism can give rise to an indefinite multiplicity of applica-
tions; and it should be equally clear that such a geometry, very far
from being related only to pure quantity, is on the contrary essen-
tially qualitative. The same can be said of the true science of num-
bers, for the principial numbers, though they must be referred to as
numbers by analogy, are situated relatively to our world at the pole
opposite to that at which are situated the numbers of common
arithmetic; the latter are the only numbers the moderns know, and
on them they turn all their attention, thus taking the shadow for the
reality, like the prisoners in Plato’s cave.

The present study is designed to provide a further and more
complete demonstration of what, in a very general sense, is the true
nature of these traditional sciences, thus bringing into prominence
the abyss separating them from the profane sciences, which are
something like a caricature or parody of them. This in turn will
make it possible to measure the extent of the decadence undergone
by the modern mentality in passing from one to the other; it will
also indicate, by correctly situating the objects taken into account
by each science, how this decadence follows strictly the downward
movement of the cycle now being passed through by our humanity.
Let it be clear however that these are questions nobody can ever
claim to treat completely, for they are by their very nature inex-
haustible; but an attempt will be made to say enough to enable any-
one to draw the necessary conclusions so far as the determination of
the ‘cosmic moment’ corresponding to the present period is con-
cerned. If, however, a proportion of the matters to be dealt with
nevertheless continues to appear obscure to some people, that will
only be because the point of view ^adopted fails to conform to their
mental habits, and is too foreign to everything that has been incul-
cated into them by the education they have received and by the
environment in which they live; nothing can be done about this, for

INTRODUCTION 7

there are things for which a symbolical mode of expression properly
so called is the only one possible, and which will consequently never
be understood by those for whom symbolism is a dead letter. It
must also be remembered that a symbolical mode of expression is
the indispensable vehicle of all teaching of an initiatic character;
but, without even considering the profane world and its evident
and in a sense natural lack of comprehension, it is enough to glance
at the vestiges of initiation that still persist in the West in order to
see what some people, for lack of intellectual qualification’, make of
the symbols proffered for their meditation. One may be quite sure
that these people, with whatever titles they may be endowed and
whatever initiatic degrees they may have received ‘virtually’, will
never get so far as to penetrate to the real meaning of the smallest
fragment of the mysterious geometry of ‘the Great Architects of the
Orient and of the Occident’.

As the West has just been alluded to, one further remark is called
for: however far afield the state of mind that has been specifically
designated as ‘modern’ may have spread, especially in recent years,
and however strong may be the hold it has taken and that it exer-
cises ever more completely— at least externally — over the whole
world, this state of mind remains nevertheless purely Western in
origin: in the West it had its birth, and the West was for a long time
its exclusive domain; in the East its influence will never be anything
but a Westernization. However far that influence may extend in the
course of events still to be unfolded, its extension can never be held T
to contradict what has been said about the difference between the
spirit of the East and that of the West, and this difference is none
other than that between the traditional spirit and the modern spirit;
for it is all too clear that to the extent that a man ‘Westernizes’ him-
self, whatever may be his race or country, to that extent he ceases to
be an Easterner spiritually and intellectually, that is to say from the
one point of view that really holds any interest. This is not a simple
question of geography, unless that word be understood in a sense
other than its modern one, for there is also a symbolical geography;
indeed, in this connection, there is a very significant correspon-
dence between the domination of the West and the end of a cycle,
for the West is the place where the sun sets, that is to say where it

8 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

arrives at the end of its daily journey, and where, according to Chi-
nese symbolism, ‘the ripe fruit falls to the foot of the tree’. As to the
means whereby the West has come to establish that domination, of
which the ‘modernization of a more or less considerable number of
Easterners is only the latest and most vexing consequence, it has
been made sufficiently clear in the author’s other works that these
means are based on material strength alone, which amounts to say-
ing that Western domination is itself no more than an expression of
the ‘reign of quantity’.

Thus, from whatever side one looks at things, one is always
brought back to the same considerations and constantly sees them
verified in all possible applications. There ought not to be anything
surprising in this, for truth is necessarily coherent; but that cer-
tainly does not mean that truth is ‘systematic’, as profane philoso-
phers and scholars all too readily imagine, confined as they are
within narrowly limited conceptions to which alone the word ‘sys-
tems’ can properly be applied, and which merely reflect the insuffi-
ciency of individual minds left to their own devices; this is so even
when the minds in question belong to those conventionally called
‘men of genius’, for all the most vaunted speculations of such peo-
ple are certainly not equal in value to a knowledge of the smallest
traditional truth. Enough has been said on that subject in another
place, for it has previously been found necessary to denounce the
errors of ‘individualism’, for that again is one of the characteristics
of the modern spirit; here it may be added that the false unity of the
individual, conceived as constituting in himself a complete whole,
corresponds in the human order to the false unity of the so-called
‘atom’ in the cosmic order: both the one and the other are merely
elements that are regarded as ‘simple’ from a purely quantitative
point of view, and as such are supposed to be capable of a sort of
indefinite repetition, which is strictly speaking an impossibility
since it is essentially incompatible with the very nature of things; in
fact, this indefinite repetition is nothing but the pure multiplicity
toward which the present world is straining with all its might, with-
out however being able ever to lose itself entirely therein, because
pure multiplicity is situated beneath the level of manifested exist-
ence, and represents the extreme opposite of principial unity. The

INTRODUCTION 9

descending cyclic movement must therefore be considered as taking
place between these two poles, starting from unity, or rather from
the point closest to unity in the domain of manifestation, relatively
to the state of existence envisaged, and gradually tending toward
multiplicity, that is to say toward multiplicity considered analyti-
cally and without reference to any principle, for it goes without
saying that in the principial order all multiplicity is synthetically
comprehended in unity itself. It might appear that there is, in a
sense, multiplicity at the two extreme points, in the same way as
there is correlatively, as has just been pointed out, unity on the one
side and ‘units’ on the other; but the notion of inverse analogy
applies strictly here too, so that while the principial multiplicity is
contained in metaphysical unity, arithmetical or quantitative ‘units’
are on the other hand contained in the other and inferior multiplic-
ity. Incidentally, does not the mere possibility of speaking of ‘units’
in the plural show clearly enough how far removed the thing so
spoken of is from true unity? The multiplicity of the lower order is
by definition purely quantitative, it could be said to be quantity
itself, deprived of all quality; on the other hand the multiplicity of
the higher order, or that which can be called so analogically, is really
a qualitative multiplicity, that is to say the integrality of the qualities
or attributes that constitute the essence of beings and of things. So it
can be said that the descent referred to tends away from pure quality
toward pure quantity, both the one and the other being limits situ-
ated outside manifestation, the one above it and the other beneath.
In relation to the special conditions of our world or of our state of
existence, these limits are an expression of the two universal princi-
ples that have elsewhere been referred to as ‘essence’ and ‘substance’,
and they are the two poles between which all manifestation is pro-
duced. This is a point that must be explained more fully before
going any further, for it provides an indispensable key to the better
understanding of the considerations to be developed later in this
study.

1

QUALITY
AND QUANTITY

Quality and quantity are fairly generally regarded as comple-
mentary terms, although the profound reason for their comple-
mentarism is often far from being understood, this reason lying in
the ‘polar’ correspondence referred to toward the end of the intro-
duction to this book. This, the first of all cosmic dualities, is a start-
ing-point, for it is situated at the very principle of existence or of
universal manifestation, and without it no manifestation would be
possible in any mode whatsoever: it is the duality of Purusha and
Prakriti according to the Hindu doctrine, or to use another termi-
nology, that of ‘essence’ and ‘substance’. Its two terms must be
envisaged as universal principles, and as being the two poles of all
manifestation; but, at another level, or rather at a number of differ-
ent levels (for there are many levels, corresponding to the more or
less particularized domains that can be envisaged in the interior of
universal manifestation), these two terms can also be used analogi-
cally and in a relative sense to designate that which corresponds to
the two principles, or most directly represents them with reference
to a particular more or less limited mode of manifestation. Thus it
is that essence and substance can be spoken of in relation either to a
world, that is to say to a state of existence determined by certain
special conditions, or in relation to a being considered as a separate
entity, or even to each of the states of that being, that is to say, to its
manifestation in each of the degrees of existence; in this last case,
there is naturally a correspondence between what essence and sub-
stance represent in the microcosm and what they represent, consid-
ered from a macrocosmic point of view, in the world in which the

12 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

manifestation of the being is situated; in other words, they are then
only particularizations of the relative principles that are the deter-
minations of universal essence and substance in relation to the con-
ditions of the world in question.

Understood in this relative sense, and especially with reference to
particular beings, essence and substance are in effect the same as the
‘form’ and ‘matter’ of the scholastic philosophers; but it is better to
avoid the use of these latter terms because, doubtless owing to an
imperfection of the Latin language in this connection, they only
convey rather inaccurately the ideas they ought to express , 1 and also
because they have lately become even more equivocal by reason of
the quite different meaning commonly assigned to them in current
speech. However that may be, to say that every manifested being is a
composite of ‘form’ and ‘matter’ amounts to saying that its existence
necessarily proceeds simultaneously from both essence and sub-
stance, and consequently that there is in each being something cor-
responding both to the one and to the other of these two principles,
in such a way that the being is as it were a resultant of their union, or
to speak more exactly, a resultant of the action exercised by the
active principle, Essence, on the passive principle, Substance; and if
consideration is confined to the special case of individual beings, the
‘form’ and the ‘matter’ that constitute those beings are respectively
identical with what the Hindu tradition designates as nama and
rupa. While on the subject of concordances between different termi-
nologies, thus perhaps incidentally enabling some people to trans-
late the explanations given into a language to which they are more
accustomed, it may be added that the Aristotelian designations ‘act’
and ‘potency’ also correspond to essence and substance. Aristotle’s
terms are susceptible of a more extended application than are the
terms ‘form’ and ‘matter’, but to say that there is in every being
a mixture of act and potency comes back to the same thing in the
end, for act is that in him by which he participates in essence, and
potency is that in him by which he participates in substance; pure

1. These words translate in a rather unsatisfactory way the Greek terms eifxx;
and uXr| employed in the same sense by Aristotle. These terms will be referred to
again later.

QUALITY AND QUANTITY 13

act and pure potency could not exist anywhere in manifestation,
since they are true equivalents of universal essence and substance.

Provided that this is clearly understood, it is possible to speak of
the Essence and of the Substance of our world, that is, of the world
that is the domain of the individual human being, and it can be said
that in conformity with the particular conditions that define this
world as such, these two principles appear in it under the aspects of
quality and of quantity respectively. This may appear evident at first
sight so far as quality is concerned, since essence is the principial
synthesis of all the attributes that belong to a being and make that
being what it is, and since attributes and qualities are really synony-
mous: and it may be observed that quality, considered as the con-
tent of Essence, if such an expression be allowable, is not exclusively
confined to our world, but is susceptible of a transposition that uni-
versalizes its significance. There is nothing remarkable in this, since
Essence represents the superior principle; but in any such universal-
ization quality ceases to be the correlative of quantity, for quantity,
unlike quality, is strictly linked up with the special conditions of our
world; furthermore, from a theological point of view, is not quality
in some way brought into relation with God himself when his
attributes are spoken of, whereas it would be manifestly inconceiv-
able to pretend to assign to him any sort of corresponding quantita-
tive determination . 2 To this the objection might perhaps be raised
that Aristotle ranks quality as well as quantity among his ‘catego-
ries’, which are only special modes of the being and not coextensive r-
with it; he does so however without effecting the transposition pre-
viously mentioned, indeed he has no need to effect it, for the enu-
meration of his ‘categories’ relates only to our world and to its
conditions, in such a way that quality cannot be and is not really
meant to be understood otherwise than in a sense that is more
immediate for us in our state as individuals, the sense in which, as
explained earlier, it appears as a correlative of quantity.

It is of interest to note on the other hand that the ‘form’ of the
scholastics is what Aristotle calls ei&x;, and that this latter word is

2. It is possible to speak of Brahma saguna or ‘qualified’, but there can be no
possible question of Brahma ‘quantified’.

14 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

also used to mean ‘species’, which is properly speaking a nature or
an essence common to an indefinite multitude of individuals.
Specific nature is of a purely qualitative order, for it is truly ‘innu-
merable’ in the strict sense of the word, that is to say it is indepen-
dent of quantity, being indivisible and entire in every individual
belonging to the species, so that it is quite unaffected by the number
of those individuals, ‘plus’ or ‘minus’ not being applicable to it.
Moreover, ei8oq is etymologically the ‘idea’, not only in the modern
psychological sense, but also in an ontological sense nearer than is
ordinarily supposed to the sense in which Plato uses it, for whatever
may be the real differences in this connection between the concep-
tions of Plato and of Aristotle, as so often happens they have been
greatly exaggerated by disciples and commentators. The Platonic
ideas are also essences; Plato gives expression chiefly to the tran-
scendent aspect and Aristotle to the immanent aspect, but this does
not imply incompatibility; independently of any conclusions to
which the ‘systematic’ spirit may lead, it is only a matter of a differ-
ence of level; in any case, they are always considering ‘archetypes’ or
the essential principles of things, such principles representing what
may be called the qualitative side of manifestation. Furthermore,
the Platonic ideas, under another name and by direct filiation, are
the same thing as the Pythagorean numbers; and this shows clearly
that although the Pythagorean numbers are, as already indicated,
called numbers analogically, they are in no way numbers in the
ordinary quantitative sense of the word; they are on the contrary
purely qualitative, corresponding inversely on the side of essence to
what the quantitative numbers are on the side of substance. 3

On the other hand, when Saint Thomas Aquinas says that
numerus stat ex parte materiae he is speaking of quantitative num-
ber, thereby affirming decisively that quantity has an immediate
connection with the substantial side of manifestation. The word

3. It may be observed that the name of a being, insofar as it is an expression of
its essence, is properly speaking a number understood in this qualitative sense; and
this establishes a close link between the -conception of the Pythagorean numbers —
and consequently that of the Platonic ideas — and the use of the Sanskrit word
nama to denote the essential side of a being.

QUALITY AND QUANTITY 15

‘substantial’ is used here because materia in the scholastic sense is
not by any means the same as ‘matter’ as understood by modern
physicists, but is properly ‘substance’, whether that word be taken in
its relative meaning, as when it is put into correlation with forma
and referred to particular beings, or whether it be taken, when
materia prima is in question, as the passive principle of universal
manifestation, that is, as pure potentiality, and so as the equivalent
of Prakriti in the Hindu doctrine. However, as soon as ‘matter’ is in
question, in whatever sense the word be taken, everything becomes
particularly obscure and confused, and doubtless not without rea-
son ; 4 and therefore, while it has been possible to give an adequate
account of the relation of quality to essence without developing a
long argument, it will be necessary to go more deeply into the rela-
tion between quantity and substance in order to present a clear pic-
ture of the various aspects assumed by the Western conception of
‘matter’ even before the advent of the modern deviation in which
this word was destined to play so great a part: and it is all the more
necessary to do so because this question is in a sense at the very root
of the principal subject of this study.

4. It must be pointed out, in connection with essence and substance, that the
scholastics often translate as substantia the Greek word ouoia, which on the con-
trary means properly and literally ‘essence’, and this contributes not a little to the
growth of linguistic confusion; hence such expressions as ‘substantial form’ for
instance, this expression being very ill adapted to convey the idea of that which
really constitutes the essential side of a being and not its substantial side.

2

MATERIA

SIGNATA

QUANTITATE

The scholastics gave the name materia y generally speaking, to
what Aristotle had called uXti; but this materia , as has already been
said, must in no way be identified with the ‘matter’ of the moderns,
for the idea of ‘matter’, complex and even in some ways contradic-
tory as it is, seems to have been as strange to the ancient Westerners
as it still is to Easterners. Even admitting that materia can become
‘matter’ in certain special cases, or rather to be more accurate, that
the more recent conception can be made to fit into the earlier one,
materia nevertheless includes many other things at the same time,
and it is these other things that must be carefully distinguished
from ‘matter’; but for the purpose of naming them as a group by
some comprehensive term like uXt| or materia , we have no better
word at our disposal in Western languages than the word ‘sub-
stance’ In any case, vh\, as a universal principle, is pure potency in
which nothing is distinguished or ‘actualized’, and it constitutes the
passive ‘support’ of all manifestation; it is therefore, taken in this
sense, precisely Prakriti or universal substance, and everything that
has been said elsewhere about Prakriti applies equally to u^r| thus
understood . 1 Substance, understood in a relative sense as being that

1. The primary meaning of the word uA.r| is related to the vegetative principle;
here there is an allusion to the ‘root’ (in Sanskrit miila , a term applied to Prakriti )
which is the starting-point of manifestation; in this can be seen some connection

MATERIA SIGNATA QUANTITATE 17

which represents analogically the substantial principle and plays its
part in relation to a more or less narrowly restricted order of exist-
ence, furnishes the term uAx| with a secondary meaning, particu-
larly when this term is correlated with ei8o<; to designate the two
sides, essential and substantial, of particular existences.

The scholastics, following Aristotle, distinguish these two mean-
ings by speaking of materia prima and materia secunda, so that it
can be said that their materia prima is universal substance and their
materia secunda is substance in the relative sense; but, since terms
become susceptible of multiple applications at different levels as
soon as the relative is considered, what is materia at a certain level
can become forma at another, and inversely, according to the more
or less particularized hierarchy of the degrees of manifested exist-
ence under consideration. In no case is a materia secunda pure
potency, although it may constitute the potential side of a world or
of a being; universal substance alone is pure potency, and it is situ-
ated not only beneath our world ( substantia, from sub stare y is liter-
ally ‘that which stands beneath’, a meaning also attached to the ideas
of ‘support’ and ‘substratum’), but also beneath the whole of all the
worlds and all the states comprised in universal manifestation. In
addition, for the very reason that it is potentiality, absolutely ‘undis-
tinguished’ and undifferentiated universal substance is the only
principle that can properly be said to be ‘unintelligible’, not merely
because we are not capable of knowing it, but because there is actu-
ally nothing in it to be known; as for relative substances, insofaras
they participate in the potentiality of universal substance, so far do
they also participate in its ‘unintelligibility’. Therefore the explana-
tion of things must not be sought on the substantial side, but on the
contrary it must be sought on the essential side; translated into
terms of spatial symbolism, this is equivalent to saying that every
explanation must proceed from above downward and not from
below upward; and this observation has a special relevance at this

which does in fact plunge its roots into that which constitutes the obscure support
of our world, substance indeed being in a way the tenebrous pole of existence, as
will appear more clearly later on.

l8 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

point, for it immediately gives the reason why modern science actu-
ally lacks all explanatory value.

Before going further it should be noted here that the physicists’
‘matter’ can in no case be anything but a materia secunda, since the
physicists regard it as being endowed with properties, on the nature
of which they are incidentally not entirely in agreement, so that
their ‘matter’ is not potentiality and ‘indistinction’ and nothing else
besides; moreover, as the physicists’ conceptions relate to the sensi-
ble world and do not go beyond it, they would not know what to do
with the conception of a materia prima. Nonetheless, by a curious
confusion, they talk all the time of ‘inert matter’, without noticing
that if it were really inert it would have no properties and would not
be manifested in any way, so that it could have no part in what their
senses can perceive; nevertheless they persist in pronouncing every-
thing that comes within range of their senses to be ‘matter’, whereas
inertia can actually only be attributed correctly to materia prima ,
because it alone is synonymous with passivity or pure potentiality.
To speak of the ‘properties of matter’ while asserting at the same
time that ‘matter is inert’ is an insoluble contradiction; and, by a
strange irony, modern ‘scientism’, which claims to eliminate all
‘mystery’, nonetheless appeals in its vain attempts at explanation
only to the very thing that is most ‘mysterious’ in the popular sense
of the word, that is to say most obscure and least intelligible!

The question now arises, after setting aside the supposed ‘inertia
of matter’ as being really no more than an absurdity, whether ‘mat-
ter’, endowed as it is with the more or less defined qualities that
enable it to be manifested to our senses, is the same thing as the
materia secunda of our world as understood by the scholastics.
Doubt will at once arise as to the validity of any such assimilation, if
it be noted that the materia secunda in question, if it is to play a part
in relation to our world analogous to that played by materia prima
or universal substance in relation to all manifestation, must in no
way be manifested in this world itself, but can only serve as ‘support’
or ‘root’ to whatever is manifested therein, and that in consequence,
sensible qualities cannot be inherent in it, but on the contrary must
proceed from ‘forms’ implanted in it; and this again amounts to
saying that anything that is quality must necessarily be referred to

MATERIA SIGNATA QUANTITATE 19

essence. Here a new confusion makes its appearance: modern physi-
cists, in their efforts to reduce quality to quantity, have arrived by a
sort of ‘logic of error’ to the point of confusing the two, and thence
to the attribution of quality itself to their ‘matter’ as such; and they
end by assigning all reality to ‘matter’, or at least all that they are
capable of recognizing as reality: and it is this that constitutes ‘mate-
rialism’ properly so called.

Nevertheless, the materia secunda of our world cannot be devoid
of all determination, for if it were so it would be inseparable from
the materia pritna itself in its complete ‘indistinction’; neither can it
be a sort of generalized materia secunda , for it must be determined
in accordance with the special conditions of this world, in such a
way that it can effectively play the part of substance in relation to
this world in particular, and not in relation to anything else. The
nature of this determination must then be specified, and this is what
Saint Thomas Aquinas does when he defines this particular materia
secunda as materia signata quantitate ; quality is therefore not inher-
ent in it and is not that which makes it what it is, even if quality is
considered only in relation to the sensible order; its place is taken
by quantity, which thus really is ex parte materice. Quantity is one
of the very conditions of existence in the sensible or corporeal
world; it is the condition that belongs most exclusively of all to that
world; therefore, as might have been expected, the definition of the
materia secunda in question cannot concern anything other than
this world, but it must concern this world as a whole, for everything
that exists in this world is necessarily subject to quantity. The defi-
nition given is therefore fully sufficient, and there is no need to
attribute to materia secunda, as has been done to modern ‘matter’,
properties that can in no way really belong to it. It can be said that
quantity, regarded as constituting the substantial side of our world,
is as it were its ‘basic’ or fundamental condition: but care must be
taken not to go too far and attribute to it an importance of a higher
order than is justifiable, and more particularly not to try to extract
from it the explanation of this world. The foundation of a building
must not be confused with its superstructure: while there is only a
foundation there is still no building, although the foundation is
indispensable to the building; in the same way, while there is only

20 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

quantity there is still no sensible manifestation, although sensible
manifestation has its very root in quantity. Quantity, considered by
itself, is only a necessary ‘presupposition’, but it explains nothing; it
is indeed a base, but nothing else, and it must not be forgotten that
the base is by definition that which is situated at the lowest level, so
that the reduction of quality to quantity is intrinsically nothing but
a ‘reduction of the higher to the lower’, and some have very rightly
attributed this very character to materialism: to claim to derive the
‘greater’ from the ‘lesser’ is indeed one of the most typical of mod-
ern aberrations.

One further question presents itself: we meet with quantity under
diverse modes, and in particular as discontinuous quantity, which is
nothing but number , 2 and as continuous quantity, which is princi-
pally represented by spatial and temporal magnitudes; among all
these modes, which is the one that can most accurately be called
pure quantity? This question has its importance, all the more so
because Descartes, whose place is at the starting-point of many
specifically modern philosophical and scientific conceptions, tried
to define matter in terms of extension, and to make his definition
the principle of a quantitative physics, which though not yet quite
‘materialism’, was at least ‘mechanism’, and it might be tempting to
draw the conclusion that extension, as being directly inherent in
matter, represents the fundamental mode of quantity. On the other
hand, Saint Thomas Aquinas, when he says that numcrus stat ex
parte materiae , seems rather to suggest that number constitutes the
substantial basis of this world, and therefore that it is number that
must properly be looked on as pure quantity; and the attribution of
a ‘basic’ character to number is in perfect agreement with the fact
that in the Pythagorean doctrine number is taken, by inverse anal-
ogy, as the symbol of the essential principles of things. It should be

2. The pure idea of number is essentially that of whole number, and it is evident
that the sequence of the whole numbers constitutes a discontinuous series; all the
extensions that have been applied to this idea, and that have given rise to the
notions of fractional numbers and incommensurable numbers, are real alterations,
and only in fact represent the efforts tha^have been made to reduce as far as possi-
ble the intervals in the numerical discontinuity, so as to lessen the imperfection
inherent in the application of number to continuous magnitudes.

MATERIA SIGNATA QUANTITATE 21

noted too that the ‘matter’ of Descartes is no longer the materia
secunda of the scholastics; it is on the other hand an example, per-
haps the earliest in point of date, of the modern physicists’ ‘matter’,
although Descartes’ notion did not then include all that his succes-
sors were gradually to incorporate in it in order to arrive at the most
recent theories of the ‘constitution of matter’. There is therefore rea-
son to suspect that there may be some error or confusion in the
Cartesian definition of matter, and that some element not of a
purely quantitative order must have slipped into it at that stage, per-
haps unsuspected by its originator: the nature of his error will be
made clear in chapter 4, where we shall see that extension, although
it is obviously quantitative in character, like everything else belong-
ing to the sensible world, cannot be regarded as pure quantity. It
may also be observed that the theories which go farthest in the
direction of a reduction to the quantitative are generally ‘atomistic’
in one way or another, that is to say they introduce discontinuity
into their notion of matter in such a way as to bring it into much
closer relation to the nature of number than to that of extension;
and the very fact that the material from which bodies are formed
cannot in any case be conceived otherwise than as extended is never
anything but a source of contradictions in all ‘atomism’. Another
cause of confusion is the habit that has grown up of considering
‘body’ and ‘matter’ as nearly synonymous; actually, bodies are in no
sense materia secunda, which is not met with anywhere in the mani-
fested existences of this world, bodies only proceeding from it as
from their substantial principle. But number, like materia secunda,
is never perceived directly and in a pure state in the corporeal world,
and it is number that must without doubt be considered primarily
as constituting the fundamental mode in the domain of quantity;
the other modes of quantity are only derived from number, that is to
say they are so to speak only quantity by virtue of their participa-
tion in number: and this is implicitly recognized whenever it is
maintained, as in fact it always is, that everything quantitative must
be expressible in terms of number. In these other modes, even when
quantity is the predominant element, it always appears as more or
less mixed with quality; thus it is that the conceptions of space and
of time, despite the efforts of modern mathematicians, can never be

22 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

exclusively quantitative, unless indeed it be accepted that they must
be reduced to entirely empty notions, without contact with any kind
of reality; and is not the science of today in actual fact made up to a
large extent of such empty notions, purely ‘conventional’ in
character and without the least effective significance? This last ques-
tion must be more fully dealt with, especially so far as it concerns the
nature of space, for this aspect of the question is very closely
connected with the principles of geometrical symbolism, while at
the same time it provides an excellent example of the degeneration
that traditional conceptions must undergo in order to become pro-
fane conceptions; the procedure will be to examine first of all how
the conception of ‘measure’, the very foundation of geometry, can be
transposed, in a traditional sense, in such a way as to give it a
significance quite other than that which modern scientists attach to
it, for they only see in ‘measure’ a means for getting as near as they
can to their topsy-turvy ‘ideal’, which seeks to bring about by
degrees the reduction of all things to quantity.

3

MEASURE

AND MANIFESTATION

The use of the word ‘matter’, except where modern concep-
tions are being specially examined, will henceforth be avoided for
preference; and it must be understood that the reason for this lies in
the confusions to which it inevitably gives rise, since it is impossible
to use the word without at once evoking, even in those who are
aware of the different meaning attached to the word by the scholas-
tics, the idea of that which modern physicists call ‘matter’, for this
last acceptation is the only one that holds good in current language.
The idea in question, as we have seen, is not met with in any tradi-
tional doctrine whether it be Eastern or Western; this indicates at
least that, even to the extent that it might legitimately be admitted
after clearing it of certain incongruous and even flatly contradictory
elements, it contains nothing that is really essential and is related
only to one highly particularized way of looking at things. At the T
same time, since the idea is very recent, it cannot be implicit in the
word itself, which is far older, so that the original meaning of the
word must be quite independent of its modern meaning. It must
however be admitted that the true etymological derivation of this
word is very difficult to determine — as if a more or less impenetra-
ble obscurity must inevitably envelop everything that has to do with
‘matter’ — and it is scarcely possible in this connection to do more
than distinguish certain conceptions associated with its root; this
will be by no means without interest, although it is impossible to
specify exactly which of the various conceptions is the closest to the
primitive meaning of the word.

24 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

The connection that seems to have been noticed most often is
that which relates materia to mater , and this fits in well with the idea
of substance as the passive principle and as symbolically feminine; it
can be said that Prakriti plays the maternal’ part in relation to man-
ifestation and Purusha the ‘paternal’; and the same is true at all the
levels at which a correlation of essence and substance can be envis-
aged analogically . 1 On the other hand, it is also possible to relate
this same word materia to the Latin verb metiri ‘to measure’ (and it
will appear later that there is in Sanskrit a form still closer to it):
‘measure’ however implies determination, and determination can-
not be applied to the absolute indetermination of universal sub-
stance or the materia prima t but must rather be related to some
other more restricted notion, a point we propose to now examine
more closely.

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy has said on this subject:

For everything that can be conceived or perceived (in the mani-
fested world) Sanskrit has only the expression nama-rupa> the
two terms of which correspond to the ‘intelligible’ and the ‘sensi-
ble’, considered as two complementary aspects referred respec-
tively to the essence and to the substance of things . 2 It is true that
the word matra y which literally means ‘measure’, is the etymolog-
ical equivalent of materia ; but that which is thus ‘measured’ is not
the physicists’ ‘matter’, it is the possibilities of manifestation
inherent in the spirit (. Atma ). 3

1. This also agrees well with the original meaning of the word uXri which was
given above: the plant is so to speak the ‘mother’ of the fruit that comes forth from
it and is nourished from its substance, but the fruit is only developed and ripened
under the vivifying influence of the sun, the sun being thus in a sense its ‘father’;
and as a result the fruit itself is symbolically assimilated to the sun by ‘co-essential -
ity’, if it be permissible to use this expression, as may also be understood by refer-
ence to explanations given elsewhere of the symbolism of the Adityas and other
similar traditional notions.

2. These two terms, ‘intelligible’ and ‘sensible’, used in this way as correlatives,
properly belong to the language of Plato; it is well known that the ‘intelligible
world’ is for Plato the domain of ‘ideas’ or of ‘archetypes’, which, as we have seen,
are actually essences in the proper sense of the word; and, in relation to this intelli-
gible world, the sensible world, which is the domain of corporeal elements and pro-
ceeds from their combinations, is situated on the substantial side of manifestation.

3. ‘Notes on the Kata Upanisad,’ New Indian Antiquary (Bombay) 470 (1938): pt.2.

MEASURE AND MANIFESTATION 2 5

The idea of ‘measure’, brought in this way into direct relation with
manifestation itself, is very important, and is moreover far from
being peculiar to the Hindu tradition, which Coomaraswamy had
particularly in view here. It can indeed truthfully be said that the
idea is found in all the traditional doctrines in one form or another,
and, while it is naturally impossible to attempt to enumerate all the
relevant concordances that could be pointed out, enough can per-
haps be said to justify this statement, and at the same time to clarify,
as far as it is possible to do so, the symbolism of ‘measure’, which
plays so important a part in certain initiatic forms.

Measure, understood in the literal sense, is principally concerned
with the domain of continuous quantity, that is to say, it is con-
cerned most directly with things that have a spatial character (for
time, though no less continuous than space, can only be measured
indirectly, by as it were attaching it to space through movement as
intermediary, thus establishing a relation between the two). This
amounts to saying that measure is specifically concerned either
with extension itself, or with what is conventionally called the ‘mat-
ter of physics’, by reason of the character of extension that this last
necessarily possesses: but this does not mean that the nature of
matter can, as Descartes claimed, be reduced simply to extension
and nothing more. In the first case, measure is correctly said to be
‘geometrical’; in the second case, it would more usually be called
‘physical’ in the ordinary sense of the word; but in reality the sec-
ond case becomes merged in the first, for it is only by virtue of the
fact that bodies are situated in extension and occupy a certain defi-
ned part of it that they are directly measurable, whereas their other
properties are not susceptible of measurement, except to the degree
that they can in some way be related to extension. We are at this
point, as was foreseen, a long way from the materia prima , which in
its absolute indistinction, can neither be measured in any way nor
be used as a measure of anything else; but it is necessary to enquire
whether the notion of measure be not more or less closely linked
with whatever it is that constitutes the materia secunda of our
world, and it turns out that a linkage exists through the fact that the
materia secunda is signata quantitate. Indeed, if measure directly
concerns extension and what is contained therein, it is only by the
quantitative aspect of this extension that measure is made possible;

26 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

but continuous quantity as such is, as explained, only a derived
mode of quantity, that is to say it is only quantity by virtue of its
participation in pure quantity, which in its turn is inherent in the
materia secunda of the corporeal world; and besides, just because
continuity is not pure quantity, measure always carries a certain
degree of imperfection in its numerical expression, as the disconti-
nuity of number makes a fully adequate application of number to
the determination of continuous magnitudes impossible. Number
is indeed the basis of all measurement, but, so long as number is
considered by itself there can be no question of measurement, for
measurement is the application of number to something else. An
application of this kind is always possible within certain limits, but
only after taking into account the ‘inadequacy’ just referred to, and
this applies to everything subject to the quantitative condition, in
other words, to everything belonging to the domain of corporeal
manifestation. Only — and here the idea expressed by Coomar-
aswamy recurs — it must be most carefully noted that, despite cer-
tain prevalent misuses of ordinary language, quantity is never really
that which is measured, it is on the contrary that by which things
are measured; and furthermore, it can be said that the relation of
measure to number corresponds, in an inversely analogical sense, to
the relation of manifestation to its essential principle.

It is evident that in order to carry the idea of measure beyond the
limits of the corporeal world, it must be analogically transposed.
The manifestation of the possibilities of the corporeal order takes
place in space, so that space may be made use of to represent the
whole domain of universal manifestation, which otherwise would
not be ‘representable’; thus the idea of measure, when it is applied
to this comprehensive domain, is an essential part of the spatial
symbolism that is so frequently employed. Fundamentally then,
measure is an ‘assignation’ or a ‘determination’ necessarily implied
in all manifestation, in every order and under every mode; as a
determination, it naturally conforms to the conditions of each state
of existence, and it is even in a certain sense identified with those
conditions themselves, it being truly quantitative only in our world
since quantity, like space and time, is no more than one of the spe-
cial conditions of corporeal existence. But there is in every world a

MEASURE AND MANIFESTATION 2 J

determination that can be symbolized for us by the quantitative
determination we know as measure, because it is the determination
corresponding in other worlds to measure in our own, in accor-
dance with the difference of conditions in each; and it can be said
that through this determination these other worlds, together with
all that they contain, are realized or ‘actualized’ as such, since it is
inherent in the very process of manifestation. Coomaraswamy
remarks that ‘the Platonic and Neoplatonic concept of “measure”
(petpov) agrees with the Indian concept: the “non-measured” is that
which has not yet been defined; the “measured” is the defined or
finite content of the universe, that is, of the “ordered” universe; the
“non-measurable” is the Infinite, which is the source both of the
indefinite and of the finite, and remains unaffected by the definition
of whatever is definable,’ that is to say by the realization of the pos-
sibilities of manifestation which it carries in itself.

It is clear from this that the idea of measure is intimately con-
nected with that of ‘order’ (in Sanskrit rita) y and ‘order’ is in turn
related to the production of the manifested universe, the universe
being, according to the etymological meaning of the Greek word
koct|io^, a production of ‘order’ out of ‘chaos’, the latter being the
indefinite in the Platonic sense, and the ‘cosmos’ the definite . 4 The
production of ‘order’ is also assimilated in all traditions to an ‘illu-
mination’ (the Fiat Lux of Genesis), the ‘chaos’ being symbolically
identified with darkness: ‘chaos’ is the potentiality from which as
starting-point manifestation will be ‘actualized’, that is to say, it is in
effect the substantial side of the world, which is therefore described
as the tenebrous pole of existence, whereas essence is the luminous
pole since it is the influence of essence that illuminates the ‘chaos’ in
order to extract from it the ‘cosmos’; all this is in agreement with the
inter-relation of the different meanings implicit in the Sanskrit
word srishti, which designates the production of manifestation, and

4. The Sanskrit word rita is related by its root to the Latin ordo, and it is scarcely
necessary to point out that it is related even more closely to the word ‘rite’: a rite is,
etymologically, that which is accomplished in conformity with ‘order’, and which
consequently imitates or reproduces at its own level the very process of manifesta-
tion; and that is why, in a strictly traditional civilization, every act of whatever kind
takes on an essentially ritual character.

28 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

contains simultaneously the ideas ‘expression’, ‘conception’, and
‘luminous radiation ’. 5 The solar rays make apparent the things they
illumine so that they become visible, the rays thus being said sym-
bolically to ‘manifest’ them; and if a central point in space is consid-
ered, together with the radii emanating from it, it can also be said
that these radii ‘realize’ space by causing it to pass from virtuality to
actuality, and that their effective extension is at any instant the mea-
sure of the space realized. These radii correspond to the directions
of space properly so called (these directions being often represented
by the symbolism of ‘hair’, a similar symbolism being used in con-
nection with the solar rays); space is defined and measured by the
three-dimensional cross, and in the traditional symbolism of the
‘seven solar rays’, six of those rays arranged in two opposite pairs
form the cross, while the ‘seventh ray’, the ray that passes through
the ‘solar gate’, can only be represented graphically by the center
itself. All this is perfectly coherent, and is linked together as rigor-
ously as could be; and it may be added that, in the Hindu tradition,
the ‘three steps’ of Vishnu, whose ‘solar’ character is well-known,
measure the ‘three worlds’, which amounts to saying that they ‘effec-
tuate’ the totality of universal manifestation. We know too that the
three elements that constitute the sacred monosyllable Ora are des-
ignated by the term matra, showing that they also respectively rep-
resent the measure of the three worlds; and by the mediation of
these matras, the being realizes in itself the corresponding states or
degrees of universal existence and so becomes itself the ‘measure of
all things ’. 6

The Sanskrit word matra has as its exact equivalent in Hebrew
the word middah, and the middoth are assimilated in the Kabbalah
to the divine attributes, by which God is said to have created the
worlds, and this conception is also brought directly into relation
with the symbolism of the central point and the directions of
space . 7 In this connection the Biblical statement may be recalled,
according to which God has ‘arranged all things by measure and

5. Cf. A. K. Coomaraswamy, ibid.

6. Cf. Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, chap. 17.

7. Cf. The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 4.

MEASURE AND MANIFESTATION 29

number and weight’; 8 these three categories clearly represent
diverse modes of quantity, but they are only literally applicable as
such to the corporeal world and to nothing else, though by an
appropriate transposition they may nevertheless also be taken as an
expression of universal ‘order’. The same is also true of the
Pythagorean numbers, but the mode of quantity that is primarily
associated with measure, namely, extension, is the mode that is
most often and most directly brought into relation with the process
of manifestation itself, by virtue of a certain natural predominance
of spatial symbolism in this connection, arising from the fact that
space constitutes the ‘field’ (in the sense of the Sanskrit kshetra)
within which corporeal manifestation is developed, corporeal man-
ifestation being inevitably taken as the symbol of the whole of uni-
versal manifestation.

The idea of measure immediately evokes the idea of ‘geometry’,
for not only is every measurement essentially ‘geometrical’ as we
have already seen, but also geometry itself can be called the science
of measurement; but it goes without saying that geometry under-
stood primarily in a symbolic and initiatic sense is here in question,
profane geometry being merely a degenerate vestige thereof,
deprived of its original deep significance, which is entirely lost to
modern mathematicians. Such is the essential foundation of all con-
ceptions in which divine activity, conceived as producing and order-
ing the worlds, is assimilated to ‘geometry’, and consequently also to
architecture, for the two are inseparable; 9 and it is known that these
conceptions have been preserved and transmitted in uninterrupted
succession from Pythagorism (which was itself only an ‘adaptation’
and not really ‘original’) down to what still remains of the Western
initiatic organizations, however unconscious these organizations
may now be of the nature of the conception in question. Related to
this very point is Plato’s statement that ‘God geometrizes always’
(ael 6 Geoq ye( 0 )i£xpei), recourse to the neologism ‘geometrizes’ being

8. Omnia in mensura, nutnero et pondere disposuisti (Wisd. of Sol. 11:20).

9. In Arabic, the word hindesah, of which the primary meaning is ‘measure’,
serves to denote both geometry and architecture, the latter being really an applica-
tion of the former.

30 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

inevitable in order to translate this exactly, as there is no authentic
word to describe the activity of the geometrician; and the corre-
sponding inscription said to have been put on the door of his school
is: ‘Let none but a geometrician enter here,’ implying that his teach-
ing, at least on its esoteric side, could only be truly and effectively
understood through an ‘imitation’ of the divine activity itself. A sort
of last echo of this in modern philosophy (modern as to its date, but
really in reaction against specifically modern ideas) is found in this
statement of Leibnitz: ‘while God calculates and practices His cogi-
tation [that is to say, sets out his plans] the world is made’ ( dum
Deus calculat et cogitationem exercet, fit mundus), but, all these
things had a far more precise significance for the men of old, for in
the Greek tradition the ‘geometrician God’ was none other than the
hyperborean Apollo, and thus we are brought back once more to the
‘solar’ symbolism, and at the same time to a fairly direct derivation
from the primordial tradition; but that is another question, which
could not be developed here without getting entirely off the subject;
all that can be done now is to give, as opportunity occurs, a few
glimpses of the traditional knowledge that is so completely forgotten
by our contemporaries . 10

10. Coomaraswamy has called attention to a curious symbolical drawing by
William Blake representing the ‘Ancient of Days’, appearing in the solar orb, whence
he points toward the outside a compass held in his hand, all of which might illus-
trate the following words from the Rg-Veda (vm. 25.18): ‘With his ray he hath mea-
sured [or determined] the bounds of Heaven and of Earth’ (and among the
symbols of certain Masonic grades is found a compass, the head of which is formed
of a sun with rays). Here it is a case of the figuration of that aspect of the Principle
that Western initiations call the ‘Great Architect of the Universe’, who becomes too
in certain cases the ‘Great Geometrician of the Universe’, and who is identical with
Vishvakarma of the Hindu tradition, the ‘Spirit of Universal Construction’; his ter-
restrial representatives, that is to say those who in some way ‘incarnate’ this Spirit
in the case of each distinct traditional form, are what has earlier been called, for
this very reason, the ‘Great Architects of the Orient and of the Occident’.

4

SPATIAL QUANTITY
AND QUALIFIED SPACE

IT HAS ALREADY BEEN MADE CLEAR THAT EXTENSION is not

purely and simply a mode of quantity; in other words, while it is
undoubtedly legitimate to speak of quantity as extended or spatial,
this does not necessarily imply that extension can be treated as
quantity and nothing more. This must be insisted on again, because
it is particularly important in that it reveals the insufficiency of Car-
tesian ‘mechanism’ and of the other physical theories derived more
or less directly from it in modern times. The first thing to be noticed
in this connection is that if space were purely quantitative it would
have to be entirely homogeneous, and its parts would have to be
indistinguishable one from another by any characteristic other than
their respective sizes; this would amount to conceiving it as no
more than a container without content, that is to say as something
which cannot have an independent existence in manifestation, for
the relation of container to content necessarily presupposes, by its
very nature as a correlation, the simultaneous presence of both of
its terms. The question may be put, at least with some appearance
of reason, as to whether geometrical space can be conceived as
endowed with some such homogeneity, but whatever may be the
answer to that question no such conception of homogeneity is com-
patible with physical space, with the space that contains bodies, for
the presence of those bodies suffices to determine qualitative differ-
ences between the parts of space they occupy— and Descartes was
undoubtedly thinking of physical space, for otherwise his theory
would not mean anything, since it would then not be applicable in

32 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

any real sense to the world of which it claims to provide the expla-
nation . 1 It would be useless to object that ‘empty space’ is only the
starting-point of his theory because, in the first place, this would
lead back to the conception of a container without content, imply-
ing an emptiness that can have no place in the manifested world,
emptiness as such not being a possibility of manifestation ; 2 and, in
the second place, since Descartes reduces the whole nature of bodies
to extension, he is compelled thenceforth to suppose that their pres-
ence adds nothing to what space itself already is. Indeed the diverse
properties of bodies are no more in his eyes than mere modifica-
tions of extension; but if that be so, whence can these properties
come, unless they are in some way inherent in extension itself, and
how can they be so inherent if the nature of extension is lacking in
any qualitative elements? Here there is something very like contra-
diction; indeed it would be difficult to maintain that this contradic-
tion, and a good many others like it, is not implicit in the work of
Descartes; for he, like the more recent materialists who surely have
ample reason to proclaim themselves his followers, seem really to be
trying to extract the ‘greater’ from the ‘lesser’. To say that a body is
nothing but extension in a purely quantitative sense, is really the
same as to say that its surface and its volume, which measure the
portion of extension actually occupied by it, are the body itself with
all its properties, which is manifestly absurd; therefore some other
interpretation must be sought, and it becomes impossible to avoid
the admission that extension itself is in some way qualitative, but if
it is so, it cannot serve as the basis of an exclusively ‘mechanistic’
theory.

1. It is true that Descartes, at the beginning of his physics, only claims to con-
struct a hypothetical world on the basis of certain assumptions, which can be
reduced to extension and movement; but, since he is at pains to demonstrate later
that the phenomena that would be produced in such a world are precisely those of
which we are aware in our own, it is clear that, in spite of his purely verbal precau-
tion, he intends to conclude that our world is in fact constituted like the world he
began by imagining.

2. This argument is equally applicable against atomism, which by definition
admits no positive existence other than that of atoms and their combinations, and
is thus necessarily led to posit a void between the atoms for them to move about in.

SPATIAL QUANTITY AND QUALIFIED SPACE 33

Now although these considerations show that Cartesian physics
cannot be valid, they are still not sufficient to establish firmly the
qualitative character of extension; indeed it might well be argued
that, although it is true that the nature of bodies cannot be reduced
to extension alone, yet this is just because they derive nothing from
extension other than their quantitative elements. But at this point
the following observation becomes pertinent: among the corporeal
determinations which are undeniably of a purely spatial order, and
which can therefore rightly be regarded as modifications of exten-
sion, there is not only the size of bodies, but also their situation; is
situation itself therefore also purely quantitative? The partisans of a
reduction to quantity will doubtless reply that the situation of a plu-
rality of bodies is defined by their distances, and that distance is cer-
tainly a quantity— the quantity of extension that lies between them,
just as their size is the quantity of extension that they occupy; but is
distance sufficient by itself to define the situation of bodies in space?
There is something else that cannot possibly be left out of account,
and that is the direction along which distance must be measured;
but, from a quantitative point of view, direction cannot but be a
matter of indifference, because space cannot be considered as other
than homogeneous in this respect, and this implies that particular
directions in space are in no way distinguished one from another; so
if direction is an effective element in situation, and if it is a purely
spatial element, as it evidently is, and no less so than distance, then
there must be something qualitative in the very nature of space.

In order to leave no room for doubt, physical space and bodies
can be left out of the picture, nothing then remaining to be consid-
ered but a space that is in the strict sense purely geometrical, and
this surely does represent what may be called space reduced to it-
self alone; in studying such a space, does geometry really take noth-
ing into account but strictly quantitative conceptions? Let it be
clearly understood that only the profane geometry of the moderns
is now under consideration; and the question may at once be asked
whether, if there proves to be anything in profane geometry that
cannot be reduced to quantity, does it not immediately follow that
it is even less possible and less legitimate to claim to reduce every-
thing in the domain of the physical sciences to quantity? Even the

34 the reign of quantity

question of situation can be left out here, because it only plays a
really conspicuous part in certain special branches of geometry,
which might perhaps be regarded as not constituting a strictly inte-
gral part of pure geometry : 3 but in the most elementary geometry,
not only has the size of figures to be taken into account, but also
their shape; and would any geometrician, however deeply imbued
with modern conceptions, dare to maintain for example that a tri-
angle and a square of equal area are one and the same thing? He
would only say that they are ‘equivalent’, but he would clearly be
leaving out as being understood the words ‘in respect of size’, and he
would have to recognize that in another respect, namely that of
shape, there is something that differentiates them; and the reason
for which equivalence in size does not carry with it similitude of
shape is that there is something in shape that precludes its being
reduced to quantity. But this is not all: for there is a whole section of
elementary geometry to which quantitative considerations are
strange, namely the theory of similar figures; similarity is in fact
defined exclusively by shape and is wholly independent of the size of
figures, and this amounts to saying that it is of a purely qualitative
order . 4 If we now care to enquire into the essential nature of spatial
shape, it will be found to be definable as an assemblage of direc-
tional tendencies: at every point in a line its directional tendency is
specified by a tangent, and the assemblage of all the tangents defines
the shape of the line. In three-dimensional geometry the same is
true of surfaces, straight line tangents being replaced by plane tan-
gents; it is moreover evident that the shape of all bodies, as well as
that of simple geometrical figures, can be similarly defined, for the
shape of a body is the shape of the surface by which its volume is
delimited. The conclusion toward which all this leads could be fore-
seen when the situation of bodies was being discussed, namely, that
it is the notion of direction that without doubt represents the real
qualitative element inherent in the very nature of space, just as the

3. Such are, for instance, descriptive geometry, and the geometry to which cer-
tain mathematicians have given the name of analysis situs.

4. This is just what Leibnitz expressed by the formula: Aequalia sunt ejusdem
quantitatis; similia sunt ejusdem qualitatis.

SPATIAL QUANTITY AND QUALIFIED SPACE 35

notion of size represents its quantitative element; and so space that
is not homogeneous, but is determined and differentiated by its
directions, may be called ‘qualified’ space.

Thus, not only from the physical point of view, but also even
from the geometrical point of view, as has been shown, ‘qualified’
space is actually the real space; indeed homogeneous space has
properly speaking no existence at all, being nothing more than a
mere virtuality. In order that it may be measured — and this means,
according to the explanations given, in order to be effectively
realized — space must necessarily be related to an assemblage of
defined directions. These directions moreover present themselves to
us as radii emanating from a center, which thus becomes the center
of a three-dimensional cross, and it is unnecessary again to call
attention to the important part played by these radii in the symbol-
ism of all traditional forms . 5 It may not perhaps be too much to
suggest that if the study of the directions of space could be restored
to its rightful position of importance, it might become possible to
restore to geometry at least a considerable part of the profound
meaning that it has lost; but it is of no use to pretend that the work
involved might not have to be spread over a very wide field; this will
be apparent to anyone who reflects on the extent of the real influ-
ence exerted by such considerations on every aspect of the constitu-
tion of traditional societies . 6

Space, as well as time, is one of the conditions defining corporeal
existence, but these conditions are not themselves ‘matter’, or rather,

5. For a full treatment of this theme, reference may be made to the consider-
ations set out, and fully developed, in The Symbolism of the Cross.

6. Attention may be directed in particular to all questions of ritual related to
‘orientation’; this cannot be dwelt on here, and it need only be mentioned that not
only are the conditions for the construction of buildings traditionally determined
in this way, whether they be temples or houses, but also those for the foundation of
cities. The orientation of churches is the last vestige of this that has persisted in the
West up to the beginning of modern times, the last vestige, at least, from an ‘exte-
rior’ point of view, for within the symbolism of initiatic forms considerations of
this order, though not generally understood today, have always kept their place,
even when the present degenerate condition of affairs has led to a belief that the
maintenance of the effective realization of the implied conditions can be dispensed
with, and that a purely ‘speculative’ representation of them is enough.

36 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

not themselves quantity, though they accommodate themselves nat-
urally to quantity; they are less ‘substantial’ than it and so nearer to
essence, which implies the existence in them of a qualitative aspect;
we have seen that such is the case with space, and will shortly see that
it is so with time as well. Before passing on to consider time,
however, it may be pointed out that the inexistence of an ‘empty
space’ is enough to expose the absurdity of one of Kant’s too famous
cosmological antinomies: to ask ‘whether the world is infinite or
whether it is limited within space’ is a question that has absolutely
no meaning. Space cannot possibly extend beyond the world in
order to contain it, because an empty space would then be in ques-
tion, and emptiness cannot contain anything: on the contrary, it is
space that is in the world, that is to say, in manifestation, and if con-
sideration be confined to the domain of corporeal manifestation
alone, it can be said that space is coextensive with this world,
because it is one of its conditions; but this world is no more infinite
than is space itself, for, like space, it does not contain every possibil-
ity, but only represents a certain particular order of possibilities,
and it is limited by the determinations that constitute its very
nature. Similarly, in order to avoid having to return to the point, it is
worth saying here that it is no less absurd to wonder ‘whether the
world is eternal or whether it had a beginning in time’; for closely
comparable reasons the truth is that time began in the world, when-
ever universal manifestation is concerned, or with the world, when
corporeal manifestation alone is concerned. But the world is not
therefore eternal, for there are beginnings outside time; the world is
not eternal because it is contingent, in other words, it has a begin-
ning as well as an end because it is not itself its own principle, or
because it does not contain its principle in itself, that principle
being necessarily transcendent with respect to it. There is no diffi-
culty whatever in all this, but it implies that a considerable part of
the speculations of modern philosophers arises out of questions
wrongly posed and therefore insoluble and liable to give rise to
indefinite discussion; the questions themselves evaporate entirely
the moment they are examined without prejudice, and so are
reduced to what they really are— mere products of the confusion
characteristic of the mentality of today. The strange part of it is that

SPATIAL QUANTITY AND QUALIFIED SPACE 37

this very confusion seems to have its own ‘logic’, since for several
centuries, during which it has assumed many different forms, it has
always tended in the same direction; but this ‘logic’ really resides in a
conformity with the development of the human cycle, itself in turn
the result of current cosmic conditions. This leads directly to
considerations connected with the nature of time, and with what
may be called, in opposition to the purely quantitative conceptions
of the ‘mechanists’, the qualitative determinations of time.

5

THE QUALITATIVE
DETERMINATIONS
OF TIME

If space is not pure quantity, time appears to be still less so:
temporal magnitudes as well as spatial magnitudes can be spoken
of, and in both cases continuous quantity is involved (for there is
no occasion to pause to consider the strange conception of Des-
cartes, according to which time is constituted of a series of discon-
tinuous instants, so that it becomes necessary to assume a constant
repetition of the act of ‘creation, the world otherwise always van-
ishing away during the intervals of temporal discontinuity); never-
theless, there is a big distinction to be made between the two cases,
arising from a fact to which attention has already been called,
namely that space can be measured directly, whereas time can only
be measured by relating it back in some way to space. What is mea-
sured is never really a duration, it is the space covered in a certain
length of time in the course of a movement of which the law is
known; and as any such law expresses a relation between time and
space, it is possible, when the amount of the space covered is
known, to deduce therefrom the amount of time occupied in cov-
ering it; and whatever may be the artifices employed, there is actu-
ally no other way than this whereby temporal magnitudes can be
determined.

Another observation leading to the same conclusion is the fol-
lowing: the only phenomena that are situated in space as well as in
time are those that are properly called corporeal; phenomena
belonging to the mental order, such as are studied by ‘psychology’ in

THE QUALITATIVE DETERMINATIONS OF TIME 39

the ordinary sense of the word, have no spatial character, though,
like other phenomena, they are developed in time; and the mental,
since it belongs to subtle manifestation, is, within the individual
domain, necessarily nearer to essence than is the corporeal; the
nature of time thus being such that it can reach into the subtle
domain and therein condition mental manifestations, the conclu-
sion must be that the nature of time is more qualitative than that of
space. While on the subject of mental phenomena, it may be added
that, once they are seen to be akin to that which represents essence
in the individual, it is quite useless to look for quantitative elements
in them, and it is still more useless to try to reduce them to quan-
tity; the things which the ‘psycho-physiologists’ determine quanti-
tatively are not really in themselves mental phenomena, as is
imagined, but only some of their corporeal concomitants; in such
investigations there is nothing that comes anywhere near to contact
with the intrinsic nature of the mental, and so nothing that can
explain it in the smallest degree; the absurd idea of a quantitative
psychology surely represents the fullest development of the modern
‘scientistic’ aberration.

All this being so, if it is right to speak of ‘qualified’ space, it is all
the more right to speak of ‘qualified’ time, which means that there
must be fewer quantitative determinations and more qualitative
determinations in time than in space. ‘Empty time’, moreover, has
no more an effective existence than has ‘empty space’, and in this
connection everything that has been said about space could be
repeated about time: outside this world there is no time, just as
there is no space, and inside it, realized time contains all events, just
as realized space contains all bodies. In certain respects there is
something like a symmetry between space and time, so that they can
often be alluded to in terms that are more or less parallel; but this
symmetry, which is not found with respect to the other conditions
of corporeal existence, arises rather on the qualitative than on the
quantitative side, as is indicated by the difference already pointed
out between the determination of spatial magnitudes and temporal
magnitudes, as well as by the absence, in the case of time, of a quan-
titative science of an order comparable to that of the geometry of
space. Moreover, on the qualitative side symmetry is conspicuously

40 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

apparent in the correspondence existing between spatial symbolism
and temporal symbolism, of which many examples have been given
elsewhere; in fact it goes without saying that whenever symbolism is
in question the essential part is played by considerations of quality
and not of quantity.

It is evident that periods of time are qualitatively differentiated by
the events unfolded within them, just as the parts of space are differ-
entiated by the bodies they contain; it is not therefore in any way
justifiable to regard as being really equivalent durations of time that
are quantitatively equal when they are filled by totally different
sequences of events; it is indeed a matter of current observation that
quantitative equality disappears completely from the mental appre-
ciation of duration in the face of qualitative difference. Someone
may perhaps argue that qualitative difference is not inherent in
duration itself, but only in what happens within it; it therefore
becomes necessary to enquire whether there be not something in
the qualitative determination of events that originates from time
itself; and it seems that such is recognized to be the case, at least
implicitly, when, as constantly happens in ordinary speech, the par-
ticular conditions of this or that period are referred to. This seems
indeed to be even more obvious in the case of time than in that of
space, although, as explained, qualitative elements are far from
being negligible when the situation of bodies is in question; and it
could even be said, in the final analysis, that a particular body can-
not be situated indifferently in any place, any more than a particular
event can happen indifferently at any time; but here the symmetry is
not perfect, because the situation of a body in space can vary
through the occurrence of movement, whereas that of an event in
time is rigidly determined and strictly ‘unique’, so that the essential
nature of events seems to be much more rigidly tied to time than
that of bodies is to space; and this again confirms that time must
have in itself the more markedly qualitative character.

The truth is that time is not something that unrolls itself uni-
formly, so that the practice of representing it geometrically by a
straight line, usual among modern mathematicians, conveys an idea
of time that is wholly falsified by over- simplification; we shall see
later that a tendency toward a pernicious simplification is yet

THE QUALITATIVE DETERMINATIONS OF TIME 41

another characteristic of the modern spirit, and also that it inevita-
bly accompanies a tendency to reduce everything to quantity. The
correct representation of time is to be found in the traditional con-
ception of cycles, and this conception obviously involves a ‘qualified’
time; besides, whenever the question of geometrical representation
arises, whether in fact it be set out graphically or only expressed
through the use of an appropriate terminology, it is clear that a
spatial symbolism is being made use of; all this may suggest that an
indication of some kind of correlation may well be discovered
between the qualitative determinations of time and those of space. A
correlation can in fact be found: in the case of space, these deter-
minations consist essentially in the directions; and the cyclical figu-
ration effectively establishes a correspondence between the phases of
a temporal cycle and the directions of space. In order to satisfy one-
self of this, it is enough to consider an example chosen from among
those that are simplest and most immediately accessible, that of the
annual cycle, which, as is well enough known, plays a very impor-
tant part in traditional symbolism , 1 wherein the four seasons are
made to correspond with the four cardinal points . 2

A more or less complete exposition of the doctrine of cycles can-
not be entered upon here, although that doctrine is naturally
implicit in and fundamental to the whole of this study; if the limits

1 . It will suffice at this point to call attention, on the one hand, to the extent of
the use of the symbolism of the zodiac, especially from a strictly initiatic point of
view, and on the other hand, to the direct applications in the field of ritual to which
the unfolding of the annual cycle gives rise in most traditional forms.

2 . While on the subject of the qualitative determinations of space and time and
their correspondences, it would be a pity not to mention a testimony which is cer-
tainly not suspect, as being that of an ‘official’ orientalist, Marcel Granet, who has
devoted to such traditional notions a whole section of his book entitled La Pensee
chinoise [Paris: A. Michel, 1988]. It goes without saying that he cannot see in these
notions anything but singularities, which he is at pains to explain exclusively in
terms of ‘psychology’ and ‘sociology’, but there is no need to pay any attention here
to such interpretations, for they are the inevitable outcome of the prejudices of
modernity in general and of the universities in particular, only the noting of the
fact being relevant here; from this point of view, a striking picture can be found in
the book in question of the antithesis presented by a traditional civilization, on the
one hand (and this would be no less true for any such civilization other than the
Chinese) and the ‘quantitative’ civilization of the modern West on the other.

42 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

of the available space are not to be overstepped, it must suffice for
the present to formulate a few observations more directly con-
nected with the subject of this book taken as a whole, referring
wherever necessary in later chapters to relevant matters connected
with the doctrine of cycles. The first of these observations is as fol-
lows: not only has each phase of a temporal cycle, of whatever kind
it may be, its peculiar quality that influences the determination of
events, but the speed with which events are unfolded also depends
on these phases, and is therefore of a qualitative rather than of a
quantitative order. Therefore, in speaking of the speed of events in
time, by analogy with the speed of displacement of a body in space,
a certain transposition of the notion of speed has to be effected, for
speed in time cannot be reduced to quantitative expression, as can
be done in mechanics when speed properly so called is in question.
What this means is that, according to the different phases of the
cycle, sequences of events comparable one to another do not occupy
quantitatively equal durations; this is particularly evident in the
case of the great cycles, applicable both to the cosmic and to the
human orders, the most notable example being furnished by the
decreasing lengths of the respective durations of the four Yugas that
together make up a Manvantara? For that very reason, events are
being unfolded nowadays with a speed unexampled in the earlier
ages, and this speed goes on increasing and will continue to increase
up to the end of the cycle; there is thus something like a progressive
‘contraction’ of duration, the limit of which corresponds to the
‘stopping-point’ previously alluded to; it will be necessary to return
to a special consideration of these matters later on, and to explain
them more fully.

The second observation is connected with the descending direc-
tion of the cyclical movement, insofar as this movement is regarded
as the chronological expression of a process of manifestation that

3 . The decrease is known to be proportionate to the numbers 4, 3, 2, 1, their
total, 10, comprising the entire cycle; human life itself is moreover well known to be
considered as growing shorter from one age to another, which amounts to saying
that life passes by with ever-increasing rapidity from the beginning to the end of a
cycle.

THE QUALITATIVE DETERMINATIONS OF TIME 43

implies a gradual separation from the principle, a point we have
referred to often enough that further insistence on it can be dis-
pensed with. It is only mentioned again here because, taken in con-
nection with what has just been said, it gives rise to a spatial analogy
of considerable interest. The increase in the speed of events, as the
end of the cycle draws near, can be compared to the acceleration
that takes place in the fall of heavy bodies: the course of the develop-
ment of the present humanity closely resembles the movement of a
mobile body running down a slope and going faster as it approaches
the bottom; and even though certain reactions operating in a con-
trary sense complicate the matter to some extent (within the limits
of the possibility of such reactions), nonetheless this comparison
gives a very accurate picture of the cyclical movement looked at in a
general way.

Here, then, is a third and final observation. The descending
movement of manifestation, and consequently that of the cycle of
which it is an expression, takes place away from the positive or
essential pole of existence toward its negative or substantial pole,
and the result is that all things must progressively take on a decreas-
ingly qualitative and an increasingly quantitative aspect; and that is
why the last period of the cycle must show a very special tendency
toward the establishment of a ‘reign of quantity’. Moreover, the
statement that this must be so for all things does not merely imply
that it must be so as seen from a human point of view, but also that
a real modification of the ‘environment’ itself is involved. Each
period of the history of humanity corresponds specifically to a
determinate ‘cosmic moment’, so that there must necessarily be a
constant correlation between the state of the world itself, or of what
is called ‘nature’ in the usual sense of the word and more especially
of the terrestrial environment, and the state of mankind, whose
existence is evidently conditioned by that environment. It may be
added that total ignorance of such cosmic modifications is not least
among the causes of the incomprehension of modern science when-
ever anything beyond certain limits is concerned; itself born of the
very special conditions of the present period, this science is all too
obviously incapable of conceiving other and different conditions,
incapable even of the mere admission that anything of the kind

44 the reign of quantity

could exist; thus the point of view that constitutes the definition of
modern science establishes ‘barriers’ in time, which it is as impossi-
ble for science to break down as it is for a short-sighted person to
see clearly beyond a certain distance; a true ‘intellectual myopia’ is
indeed thoroughly characteristic in all respects of the modern and
‘scientistic’ mentality. Later developments of this theme will lead to
a better understanding of the nature of these modifications of the
environment, which can only be alluded to now in quite a general
way; but it may already have occurred to the reader that many
things nowadays regarded as ‘fabulous’ were not at all so for the
ancients, and even that they may still not be so for those who have
retained, not only the possession of certain aspects of traditional
knowledge, but also an outlook that allows them to reconstitute the
shape of a ‘lost world’, as well as to foresee, at least in its broad out-
lines, what will be the shape of a future world. For no other reason
than that manifestation is ruled by cyclical laws, the past and the
future are in analogical correspondence, so much so that, whatever
the ordinary person may think, previsions of this kind have not
really any ‘divinatory’ character whatever, but are founded entirely
on what have been called the qualitative determinations of time.

THE PRINCIPLE
OF INDIVIDUATION

The natures of space and time have now been dealt with ade-
quately for the purpose in view, but it is necessary to return to the
subject of ‘matter’ in order to examine a question not so far men-
tioned, in such a way as to shed a fresh light on certain aspects of
the modern world. The scholastics looked on materia as constitut-
ing the principium individuationis ; what was their reason for look-
ing at things in that way, and how far was it justified? In order to
understand what is involved in this question it is sufficient, without
in any way going beyond the limits of our world (for no principle
is here involved of a transcendent order with respect to this world)
to envisage the relation of individuals to species; in this relation
species is on the side of ‘form’ or essence, and individuals, or more
exactly that which distinguishes individuals of the same species one
from another, are on the side of ‘matter’ or substance. 1 There is
nothing surprising in this, bearing in mind what has been said
above about the meaning of the word e?8o<;, which is at once both
‘form’ and ‘species’, and about the purely qualitative character of

1. It should be pointed out that there is a difficulty in this connection, at least in
appearance: in the hierarchy of kinds, if one considers the relation of one particular
kind to a second less general kind, which is as it were a species in relation to the
first, the first plays the part of ‘matter’ and the second the part of ‘form’; thus at first
sight the relation appears to apply in a reverse direction, though actually it is not
comparable to the relation of species to individuals; moreover, it is envisaged from
a purely logical point of view, as if it were the relation of a subject and an attribute,
the subject corresponding to the designation of the kind and the attribute to that of
the ‘specific difference’.

46 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

the latter; but the point needs some further elucidation, particu-
larly, in the first place, in order to eliminate various terminological
uncertainties likely to arise.

It has already been explained why the word ‘matter’ can give rise
to misunderstandings; the word ‘form’ is perhaps even more liable
to do so, because its usual meaning is quite different from that
which it bears in scholastic language; it was used in its usual mean-
ing when the consideration of form in geometry was alluded to
above, but if scholastic language had been used instead, it would
have been necessary to say ‘figure’ and not ‘form’; to have done so
would however have been unduly contrary to established usage, of
which account must inevitably be taken if misunderstanding is to
be avoided, and that is why the word ‘form’ is always used in this
book in its ordinary meaning, except when it is used with particular
reference to scholasticism. For instance, the word is used in its ordi-
nary meaning in the statement that, of all the conditions of a state
of existence, form is the one that specifically characterizes that state
as individual; it goes without saying that form in this sense must in
no way be conceived as endowed with a spatial character, for it is so
endowed only in our world, because it is there combined with
another condition, namely space, and space belongs to the domain
of corporeal manifestation alone. But this question then arises: does
not form thus understood, rather than ‘matter’ (or if preferred,
quantity), represent the true ‘principle of individuation’, since indi-
viduals are what they are by virtue of the fact that they are con-
ditioned by form? So stated, this question represents a misunder-
standing of what the scholastics in fact mean when they speak of a
‘principle of individuation’; in no sense are they referring to that
which defines a state of existence as an individual state, for they
seem never to have attained to a conception quite of that order; and
in any case, from this point of view, species itself must be regarded
as being within the individual order, for it is in no way transcendent
with regard to the state so defined. The same point can be made in
another way, by making use of the geometrical representation
described elsewhere, and in th^t case, the whole hierarchy of kinds
must be envisaged as extending horizontally and not vertically.

THE PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUATION 47

The real question of the ‘principle of individuation’ has a much
more restricted range, and can be reduced to this: the individuals of
any one species all participate in a common nature, which is that of
the species itself, and is in all of them equally; how then does it
come about that, in spite of this community of nature, these indi-
viduals are distinct beings, or even that they are in any way distin-
guishable one from another? It must be understood that individuals
are now being considered only insofar as they belong to a species,
independently of anything else that may be peculiar to them under
other headings; the question could therefore well be formulated
in this way: of what order is the determination which is added to
specific nature so that individuals may become separate beings
while remaining within the species? It is this determination that the
scholastics relate to ‘matter’, that is to say ultimately to quantity,
according to their definition of the materia secunda of our world;
and thus ‘matter’ or quantity appears distinctly as a principle of
‘separativity’. It can also be said that quantity is a determination
added to species, as species is exclusively qualitative and so is inde-
pendent of quantity, but such is not the case with individuals owing
to the fact that they are ‘incorporated’; and in this connection the
greatest care must be taken to note that, despite an erroneous opin-
ion only too widespread among the moderns, species must in no
way be conceived as a ‘collectivity’, the latter being nothing but an
arithmetical sum of individuals; a ‘collectivity’ is, unlike species,
entirely quantitative. Confusion between the general and the collec-
tive is yet another consequence of the tendency that leads the
moderns to see nothing anywhere other than quantity; it is this ten-
dency which is constantly reappearing as a factor underlying all the
conceptions characteristic of their particular mentality.

The conclusion is this: quantity will predominate over quality in
individuals to the extent that they approach a condition in which
they are, so to speak, mere individuals and nothing more, and to the
extent that they are thereby more separate one from another; and it
must be emphasized that this does not mean that they are more
differentiated, for there is also a qualitative differentiation, which is
properly speaking the opposite of that quantitative differentiation in

48 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

which the separation in question consists. This separation turns
individuals into so many ‘units’, and turns their collectivity into
quantitative multiplicity; at the limit, these individuals would be no
more than something comparable to the imagined ‘atoms’ of the
physicists, deprived of every qualitative determination; and al-
though this limit can never in fact be reached, it lies in the direction
which the world of today is following. A mere glance at things as
they are is enough to make it clear that the aim is everywhere to
reduce everything to uniformity, whether it be human beings them-
selves or the things among which they live, and it is obvious that
such a result can only be obtained by suppressing as far as possible
every qualitative distinction; but it is particularly to be noted that
some people, through a strange delusion, are all too willing to mis-
take this ‘uniformization’ for a ‘unification’, whereas it is really
exactly the opposite, as must appear evident in the light of the ever
more marked accentuation of ‘separativity’ implied. It must be
insisted that quantity can only separate and cannot unite; every-
thing that proceeds from ‘matter’ produces nothing but antago-
nism, in many diverse forms, between fragmentary ‘units’ that are at
a point direcdy opposite to true unity, or at least are pressing toward
that point with all the weight of a quantity no longer balanced by
quality; but ‘uniformization’ constitutes so important an aspect of
the modern world, and one so liable to be wrongly interpreted, that
another chapter must be devoted to a fuller development of this
subject.

7

UNIFORMITY
AGAINST UNITY

If the domain of manifestation that constitutes our world is
considered as a whole, it can be said that the existences contained
therein, as they gradually move away from the principial unity,
become progressively less qualitative and more quantitative. Prin-
cipial unity, which contains synthetically within itself all the qualita-
tive determinations of the possibilities of this domain, is in fact its
essential pole, whereas its substantial pole, which evidently must
become nearer as the other becomes more remote, is represented by
pure quantity, with the indefinite atomic’ multiplicity it implies,
and with the exclusion of any distinction between its elements other
than the numerical. This gradual movement away from essential
unity can be envisaged from a twofold point of view, that of simulta-
neity and that of succession; this means that it can be seen as simul-
taneous in the constitution of manifested beings, where its degrees
determine for their constituent elements, or for the corresponding
modalities, a sort of hierarchy; or alternatively as successive in the
very movement of the whole of manifestation from the beginning to
the end of a cycle: needless to say it is to the second point of view
that attention will chiefly be directed in this book. In all cases how-
ever the domain in question can be represented geometrically by a
triangle of which the apex is the essential pole, which is pure quality,
while the base is the substantial pole, which in our world is pure
quantity, symbolized by the multiplicity of the points comprised in
the base, and contrasted with the single point which is the apex; and
if lines are drawn parallel to the base to represent different degrees of
remoteness from the apex, it becomes clear that multiplicity, which

50 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

symbolizes the quantitative, will be all the more accentuated as the
base is approached and the apex left behind. Nevertheless, to make
the symbol as exact as possible, the base must be supposed to be
indefinitely remote from the apex, firstly because the domain of
manifestation is in itself truly indefinite, and secondly so that the
multiplicity of the points in the base may be, so to speak, brought to
its maximum; this would also indicate in addition that the base, that
is to say pure quantity, can never be reached in the course of the
development of manifestation, though manifestation tends always
more and more toward it; it would also indicate that from below a
certain level the apex, that is to say essential unity or pure quality,
would be more or less lost to view, and this corresponds precisely to
the existing condition of our world.

It was said earlier that in pure quantity the ‘units’ are only
distinguished one from another numerically, there being indeed no
other category in which a distinction can be made; but this alone
makes it clear that pure quantity is really and necessarily beneath all
manifested existence. It is useful to recall here what Leibnitz referred
to as the ‘principle of indiscernibles’, by which he meant that there
cannot exist anywhere two identical beings, that is to say, two beings
alike in every respect. As has been pointed out elsewhere, this is an
immediate consequence of the limitlessness of universal possibility,
which carries with it the absence of all repetition in particular
possibilities; it can indeed be said that if two beings are assumed to
be identical they would not really be two, but, as coinciding in every
respect, they would actually be but one and the same being;
conversely, in order that beings may not be identical or indiscernible
there must always be some qualitative difference between them, and
their determinations can never be purely quantitative. Leibnitz
expresses this by saying that it is never true that two beings, whatever
they may be, differ solo numero , and this, in its application to bodies,
overrides ‘mechanistic’ conceptions such as those of Descartes; and
Leibnitz goes on to say that if they did not differ qualitatively ‘they
would not even be beings,’ but something like divisions, exactly
resembling each other, of a homogeneous space and time; such
divisions have no real existence, but are only what the scholastics
called entia rationis. In this connection it may be remarked that

UNIFORMITY AGAINST UNITY 51

Leibnitz himself does not seem to have had an adequate idea of the
nature of space and time, for when he defines space simply as an
‘order of coexistence’ and time as an order of succession’ he is only
considering them from a purely logical point of view, thereby
reducing them to homogenous containers quite without quality and
so with no effective existence, and he is taking no account whatever
of their ontological nature, that is to say, of the real nature of space
and time as manifested in our world, wherein they really exist as
conditions determining the special mode of existence distinguished
as corporeal existence.

The conclusion that emerges clearly from all this is that unifor-
mity, in order that it may be possible, presupposes beings deprived
of all qualities and reduced to nothing more than simple numerical
‘units’; also that no such uniformity is ever in fact realizable, while
the result of all the efforts made to realize it, notably in the human
domain, can only be to rob beings more or less completely of their
proper qualities, thus turning them into something as nearly as pos-
sible like mere machines; and machines, the typical product of the
modern world, are the very things that represent, in the highest
degree attained up till now, the predominance of quantity over
quality. From a social viewpoint, ‘democratic’ and ‘egalitarian’ con-
ceptions tend toward exactly the same end, for according to them all
individuals are equivalent one to another. This idea carries with it
the absurd supposition that everyone is equally well fitted for any-
thing whatsoever, though nature provides no example of any such
‘equality’, for the reasons already given, since it would imply noth-
ing but a complete similitude between individuals; but it is obvious
that, in the name of this assumed ‘equality’, which is one of the
topsy-turvy ‘ideals’ most dear to the modern world, individuals are
in fact directed toward becoming as nearly alike one to another as
nature allows— and this in the first place by the attempt to impose a
uniform education on everyone. It is no less obvious that differences
of aptitude cannot in spite of everything be entirely suppressed, so
that a uniform education will not give exactly the same results for
all; but it is all too true that, although it cannot confer on anyone
qualities that he does not possess, it is on the contrary very well
fitted to suppress in everyone all possibilities above the common

52 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

level; thus the ‘leveling’ always works downward: indeed, it could
not work in any other way, being itself only an expression of the ten-
dency toward the lowest, that is, toward pure quantity, situated as it
is at a level lower than that of all corporeal manifestation— not only
below the degree occupied by the most rudimentary of living
beings, but also below that occupied by what our contemporaries
have a habit of calling ‘lifeless matter’, though even this last, since it
is manifested to our senses, is still far from being wholly denuded of
quality.

The modern Westerner is moreover not content only to impose
an education of that sort at home; he also wants to impose it on
other peoples, together with the whole gamut of his own mental
and bodily habits, so as to make all the world uniform, while at the
same time he imposes uniformity on the outward aspect of the
world by the diffusion of the products of his industry. The conse-
quence, paradoxical only in appearance, is that to the extent that
more uniformity is imposed on it, the world is by so much the less
‘unified’ in the real sense of the word. This is really quite natural,
since the direction in which it is dragged is, as explained already,
that in which ‘separativity’ becomes more and more accentuated;
and here the character of ‘parody’, so often met with in everything
that is specifically modern, makes its appearance. In fact the impo-
sition of uniformity, while actually leading in a direction exactly
opposite to that of true unity, since it tends to realize that which is
most remote therefrom, takes shape as a sort of caricature of unity,
and it does so because of the analogical relation whereby, as was
pointed out very early in this book, unity itself is inversely reflected
in the ‘units’ that constitute pure quantity. It is this inversion that
justified the earlier reference to a topsy-turvy ‘ideal’, and it can be
seen that these words must in fact be understood in a very precise
sense; nevertheless, it is by no means suggested that a rehabilitation
of that word ‘ideal’ is in any way desirable, for it serves indifferently
almost any purpose nowadays, and particularly that of masking the
absence of all true principle; it is indeed so misused that it has by
now come to be almost devoid of meaning. It is tempting however
to observe that, according to its'actual derivation, it ought to denote
a certain tendency toward the ‘idea’ understood more or less in the

UNIFORMITY AGAINST UNITY 53

Platonic sense, that is to say toward essence and toward the qualita-
tive, however vaguely these may be conceived, whereas most fre-
quently, as in the case in question, it is used to designate their exact
opposite.

The existing tendency to impose uniformity not only on human
individuals but also on things has already been alluded to: indeed
the men of today boast of the ever growing extent of the modifica-
tions they impose on the world, and the consequence is that every-
thing is thereby made more and more ‘artificial’, for this is the very
result that these modifications are calculated to produce, since all
their activity is directed toward a domain as strictly quantitative as
possible. Besides, as soon as the desire to produce a purely quantita-
tive science arose, it became inevitable that the practical applica-
tions derived from that science should share its character; these
applications as a whole are generally designated by the name of
‘industry’, and modern industry can be said to represent from all
points of view the triumph of quantity, because its operations do
not demand any knowledge other than quantitative, and because
the instruments of which it makes use, that is to say machines prop-
erly so called, are developed in such a way that qualitative consider-
ations come in to the least possible extent, while the men who work
them are themselves limited to activity of an entirely mechanical
kind— quality also being completely sacrificed to quantity in the
actual products of industry. A few more observations can usefully
be made in order to cover this subject adequately, but before pro-
ceeding with them, a question which will be returned to later may
be interpolated: whatever may be thought about the value of the
results of the action that modern man applies to the world, it is a
fact, independently of any estimation of values, that this action suc-
ceeds, and that at least to a certain extent, it reaches the ends at
which it aims; if the men of another period had acted in the same
way (but this is a wholly ‘theoretical’ and unrealistic supposition, in
view of the actual mental differences between these men and those
of today) would the results have been the same? In other words, in
order that the terrestrial environment may be suitable for such
action, must it not be in some way predisposed thereto by the cos-
mic conditions of the cyclic period in which we now are; that is,

54 the reign of quantity

must there not be something in that environment which, with ref-
erence to earlier periods, has undergone a change? It would be pre-
mature to go fully into the nature of that change at this point, or to
do more than characterize it as being necessarily of the nature of a
qualitative diminution, allowing a firmer hold to everything that
springs from quantity; but what has been said about the qualitative
determinations of time at least makes the possibility of a change of
this kind conceivable and renders understandable the idea that the
artificial modifications of the world, in order that they may come
about, must presuppose natural modifications to which they merely
correspond or conform in one way or another, by virtue of the cor-
relation that invariably exists in the cyclical movement of time
between the cosmic order and the human order.

8

ANCIENT CRAFTS
AND MODERN INDUSTRY

There is a great contrast between what the ancient crafts
used to be and what modern industry now is, and it presents in its
essentials another particular case and at the same time a practical
application of the contrast between the qualitative and quantitative
points of view, which predominate in the one and in the other
respectively. In order to see why this is so, it is useful to note first of
all that the distinction between the arts and the crafts, or between
‘artist’ and ‘artisan’, is itself something specifically modern, as if it
had been born of the deviation and degeneration which have led to
the replacement in all fields of the traditional conception by the
profane conception. To the ancients the artifex was indifferently the
man who practised an art or a craft; but he was, to tell the truth,
something that neither the artist nor the artisan is today, if those
words are used in the modern sense (moreover the word ‘artisan’
tends more and more to disappear from contemporary language);
he was something more than either the one or the other because, at
least originally, his activity was bound up with principles of a much
more profound order. If the crafts used to comprehend in one way
or another the arts properly so called, since the two were not then
separated by any essential characteristic, it is because the nature of
the crafts was truly qualitative, for nobody can refuse to admit that
such is the nature of art, more or less by definition. Nevertheless the
moderns, for that very reason, narrowly restrict their conception of
art, and relegate it to a sort of closed domain having no connection
with the rest of human activity, that is, with what they regard as
constituting ‘reality’, using the word in the very crude sense it bears

56 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

for them; and they go so far as freely to attribute to art, thus robbed
of all practical significance, the character of a ‘luxury’, a term thor-
oughly characteristic of what could without any exaggeration be
called the ‘silliness’ of our period.

In every traditional civilization, as there has often been occasion
to point out, every human activity of whatever kind is always
regarded as derived essentially from principles. This is conspicu-
ously true for the sciences, and it is no less true for the arts and the
crafts, and there is in addition a close connection between them all,
for according to a formula postulated as a fundamental axiom by
the builders of the Middle Ages, ars sine scientia nihil ; the science in
question is of course traditional science, and certainly not modern
science, the application of which can give birth to nothing except
modern industry. By this attachment to principles human activity
could be said to be as it were ‘transformed’, and instead of being
limited to what it is in itself, namely, a mere external manifestation
(and the profane point of view consists in this and nothing else), it
is integrated with the tradition, and constitutes for those who carry
it out an effective means of participation in the tradition, and this is
as much as to say that it takes on a truly ‘sacred’ and ‘ritual’ charac-
ter. That is why it can be said that, in any such civilization, ‘every
occupation is a priesthood’; 1 but in order to avoid conferring on
this last word a more or less unwarrantable extension of meaning, if
not a wholly false one, it must be made clear that priesthood is not
priesthood unless it possesses something that has been preserved in
the sacerdotal functions alone, ever since the time when the previ-
ously non-existent distinction between the sacred and the profane
arose.

To see what is meant by the ‘sacred’ character of the whole of
human activity, even only from an exterior or, if preferred, exoteric
point of view, it is only necessary to consider a civilization like the
Islamic, or the Christian civilization of the Middle Ages; it is easy to
see that in them the most ordinary actions of life have something
‘religious’ in them. In such civilizations religion is not something

1. A.M. Hocart, Les Castes (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1938), P27. [Caste: A Compara-
tive Study (New York: Russell and Russell, 1968).]

ANCIENT CRAFTS AND MODERN INDUSTRY 57

restricted, narrowly bounded and occupying a place apart, without
effective influence on anything else, as it is for modern Westerners
(at least for those who still consent to admit religion at all); on the
contrary it penetrates the whole existence of the human being, or
better, it embraces within its domain everything which constitutes
that existence, and particularly social life properly so called, so
much so that there is really nothing left that is ‘profane’, except in
the case of those who for one reason or another are outside the tra-
dition, but any such case then represents no more than a mere
anomaly. Elsewhere, where the word ‘religion’ cannot properly be
applied to the form of the civilization considered, there is nonethe-
less a traditional and ‘sacred’ legislation that plays an equivalent
part though it has a different character, similar considerations thus
applying to all traditional civilizations without exception. But there
is something more: looking at esoterism rather than exoterism
(these words being used for convenience although they do not
strictly apply to all cases in the same way) it becomes clear that
there exists, generally speaking, an initiation linked to the crafts and
taking them as its base or its ‘support’; 2 these crafts must therefore
be capable of a superior and more profound significance if they are
to provide effectively a way of access to the initiatic domain, and it is
evidently by reason of their essentially qualitative character that
such a thing is possible.

The notion that helps most toward an understanding of this
point is that which the Hindu doctrine calls svadharma. In itself this
notion is entirely qualitative, since it implies the accomplishment by
every being of an activity conformable to its own particular essence
or nature, and thereby eminently conformable to ‘order’ ( rita ) in the
sense already explained; and it is this same notion, or rather its
absence, that indicates so clearly where the profane and modern
conception fails. Indeed, according to the modern conception a
man can adopt any profession, and even change it to suit his whim,

2. It may be noted that all that still persists in the way of authentically initiatic
organizations in the West, whatever may be their present state of decadence, has no
other origin than this. Initiations belonging to other categories disappeared com-
pletely a long time ago.

58 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

as if the profession were something wholly outside himself, having
no real connection with what he really is, that by virtue of which he
is himself and not anyone else. According to the traditional concep-
tion, on the other hand, each person must normally fulfil the func-
tion for which he is destined by his own nature, using the particular
aptitudes essentially implicit in that nature as such ; 3 he cannot fulfill
a different function except at the cost of a serious disorder, which
will have its repercussions on the whole social organization of which
he is a part; and much more than this, if that kind of disorder
becomes general, it will begin to have an effect on the cosmic envi-
ronment itself, since all things are linked together by rigorous corre-
spondences. Without developing this last point any further,
although an application to modern conditions might well be made,
what has been said so far can be summarized thus: according to the
traditional conception, it is the essential qualities of beings that
determine their activity; according to the profane conception on the
other hand, these qualities are no longer taken into account, and
individuals are regarded as no more than interchangeable and
purely numerical ‘units’. The latter conception can only logically
lead to the exercise of a wholly ‘mechanical’ activity, in which there
remains nothing truly human, and that is exactly what we can see
happening today. It need hardly be said that the ‘mechanical’ activi-
ties of the moderns, which constitute industry properly so called
and are only a product of the profane deviation, can afford no possi-
bility of an initiatic kind, and further, that they cannot be anything
but obstacles to the development of all spirituality; indeed they can-
not properly be regarded as authentic crafts, if that word is to retain
the force of its traditional meaning.

If the craft is as it were a part of the man himself and a manifesta-
tion or expansion of his own nature, it is easy to see how it can serve
as a basis for an initiation, and why it is the best possible basis in a

3. It should be noted that the French word metier is etymologically derived
from the Latin ministerium, and properly means ‘function’. [The word metier is
here translated as ‘craft’. Its exact meaning is somewhere between ‘craft’ and ‘voca-
tion’ as commonly understood today, and it does not appear to have a precise
equivalent in modern English. Tr.]

ANCIENT CRAFTS AND MODERN INDUSTRY 59

majority of cases. Initiation has in fact as its objective the surpassing
of the possibilities of the human individual as such, but it is no less
true that it can only take that individual such as he is as starting-
point, and then only by taking hold as it were of his superior side,
that is, by attaching itself to whatever in him is most truly qualita-
tive; hence the diversity of initiatic paths, in other words, of the
means made use of as ‘supports’ in order to conform to the differ-
ences of individual natures; these differences become, however, of
less importance as time goes on, in proportion as the being
advances on its path and thus approaches the end which is the same
for all. The means employed cannot be effective unless they really fit
the very nature of the being to whom they are applied; and since it
is necessary to work from what is more accessible toward what is
less so, from the exterior toward the interior, it is normal to choose
them from within the activity by which its nature is manifested out-
wardly. But it is obvious that this activity cannot be used in any
such way except insofar as it effectively expresses the interior nature;
thus the question really becomes one of ‘qualification’ in the initi-
atic sense of the word; and in normal conditions, the very same
‘qualification’ ought to be a requirement for the practice of the craft
itself. All this is also connected with the fundamental difference that
separates initiatic teaching, and more generally all traditional teach-
ing, from profane teaching. That which is simply ‘learned’ from the
outside is quite valueless in the former case, however great may be
the quantity of the notions accumulated (for here too profane
‘learning’ shows clearly the mark of quantity); what counts is, on
the contrary, an ‘awakening’ of the latent possibilities that the being
carries in itself (which is, in the final analysis, the real significance of
the Platonic ‘reminiscence’). 4

These last considerations make it understandable that initiation,
using the craft as ‘support’, has at the same time, and as it were in a
complementary sense, a repercussion on the practice of the craft.
The craftsman, having fully realized the possibilities of which his
professional activity is but the outward expression, and thus pos-
sessing the effective knowledge of that which is the very principle of

4. On this subject see particularly the Meno of Plato.

60 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

his activity, will thenceforth consciously accomplish what was pre-
viously only a quite ‘instinctive’ consequence of his nature; and
thus, since for him initiatic knowledge is born of the craft, the craft
in its turn will become the field of application of the knowledge,
from which it will no longer be possible to separate it. There will
then be a perfect correspondence between the interior and the exte-
rior, and the work produced can then become the expression, no
longer only to a certain degree and in a more or less superficial way,
but the really adequate expression, of him who conceived and exe-
cuted it, and it will then constitute a ‘masterpiece’ in the true sense
of the word.

There is thus no difficulty in seeing how far removed true craft is
from modern industry, so much so that the two are as it were oppo-
sites, and how far it is unhappily true that in the ‘reign of quantity’
the craft is, as the partisans of ‘progress’ so readily declare, a ‘thing
of the past’. The workman in industry cannot put into his work
anything of himself, and a lot of trouble would even be taken to pre-
vent him if he had the least inclination to try to do so; but he cannot
even try, because all his activity consists solely in making a machine
go, and because in addition he is rendered quite incapable of initia-
tive by the professional ‘formation’— or rather deformation— he has
received, which is practically the antithesis of the ancient appren-
ticeship, and has for its sole object to teach him to execute certain
movements ‘mechanically’ and always in the same way, without
having at all to understand the reason for them or to trouble him-
self about the result, for it is not he, but the machine, that will really
fabricate the object. Servant of the machine, the man must become
a machine himself, and thenceforth his work has nothing really
human in it, for it no longer implies the putting to work of any of
the qualities that really constitute human nature . 5 The end of all
this is what is called in present-day jargon ‘mass-production’, the

5. It may be remarked that the machine is in a sense the opposite of the tool,
and is in no way a ‘perfected tool’ as many imagine, for the tool is in a sense a ‘pro-
longation’ of the man himself, whereas the machine reduces the man to being no
more than its servant; and, if it was true to say that ‘the tool engenders the craft’, it
is no less true that the machine kills it; the instinctive reactions of the artisans
against the first machines thus explain themselves.

ANCIENT CRAFTS AND MODERN INDUSTRY 6l

purpose of which is only to produce the greatest possible quantity
of objects, and of objects as exactly alike as possible, intended for
the use of men who are supposed to be no less alike; that is indeed
the triumph of quantity, as was pointed out earlier, and it is by the
same token the triumph of uniformity. These men who are reduced
to mere numerical ‘units’ are expected to live in what can scarcely be
called houses, for that would be to misuse the word, but in ‘hives’ of
which the compartments will all be planned on the same model,
and furnished with objects made by ‘mass-production’, in such a
way as to cause to disappear from the environment in which the
people live every qualitative difference; it is enough to examine the
projects of some contemporary architects (who themselves describe
these dwellings as ‘living-machines’) in order to see that nothing
has been exaggerated. What then has happened to the traditional
art and science of the ancient builders, or to the ritual rules by
which the establishment of cities and of buildings was regulated in
normal civilizations? It would be useless to press the matter further,
for one would have to be blind to fail to see the abyss that separates
the normal from the modern civilization, and no doubt everyone
will agree in recognizing how great the difference is; but that which
the vast majority of men now living celebrate as ‘progress’ is exactly
what is now presented to the reader as a profound decadence, con-
tinuously accelerating, which is dragging humanity toward the pit
where pure quantity reigns.

9

THE TWOFOLD
SIGNIFICANCE
OF ANONYMITY

In connection with the traditional conception of the crafts,
which is but one with that of the arts, there is another important
question to which attention must be drawn: the works of traditional
art, those of medieval art, for instance, are generally anonymous,
and it is only very recently that attempts have been made, as a result
of modern ‘individualism’, to attach the few names preserved in his-
tory to known masterpieces, even though such ‘attributions’ are
often very hypothetical. This anonymity is just the opposite of the
constant preoccupation of modern artists to affirm and to make
known above all their own individualities; on the other hand, a
superficial observer might think that it is comparable to the ano-
nymity of the products of present-day industry, although the latter
have no claim whatever to be called ‘works of art’; but the truth is
quite otherwise, for although there is indeed anonymity in both
cases, it is for exactly contrary reasons. It is the same with anonym-
ity as with many other things which by virtue of the inversion of
analogy, can be taken either in a superior or in an inferior sense:
thus, for example, in a traditional social organization, an individual
can be outside the castes in two ways, either because he is above
them ( ativarna ) or because he is beneath them ( avarna ), and it is
evident that these cases represent two opposite extremes. In a simi-
lar way, those among the moderns who consider themselves to be
outside all religion are at the' extreme opposite point from those
who, having penetrated to the principial unity of all the traditions,

THE TWOFOLD SIGNIFICANCE OF ANONYMITY 63

are no longer tied to any particular traditional form . 1 In relation to
the conditions of the normal humanity, or to what may be called its
‘mean’, one category is below the castes and the other beyond: it
could be said that one has fallen to the ‘infra-human’ and the other
has risen to the ‘supra-human’. Now, anonymity itself can be char-
acteristic both of the ‘infra-human’ and of the ‘supra-human’: the
first case is that of modern anonymity, the anonymity of the crowd
or the ‘masses’ as they are called today (and this use of the highly
quantitative word ‘mass’ is very significant), and the second case is
that of traditional anonymity in its manifold applications, includ-
ing its application to works of art.

In order to understand this properly, recourse must be had to the
doctrinal principles that are common to all the traditions. The
being that has attained a supra-individual state is, by that fact alone,
released from all the limiting conditions of individuality, that is to
say it is beyond the determinations of ‘name and form’ ( nama-rupa )
that constitute the essence and the substance of its individuality as
such; thus it is truly ‘anonymous’, because in it the ‘ego’ has effaced
itself and disappeared completely before the ‘Self ’. 2 Those who have
not effectively attained to such a state must at least, as far as their
capabilities permit, use every endeavour to reach it; and they must
consequently and no less consistently ensure that their activity imi-
tates the corresponding anonymity, so that it might be said to par-
ticipate therein to a certain extent, and it will then furnish a
‘support’ for a spiritual realization to come. This is specially notice-
able in monastic institutions, whether Christian or Buddhist, where
what may be called the ‘practice’ of anonymity is always kept up,
even if its deeper meaning is too often forgotten; but it would be
wrong to suppose that the reflection of that kind of anonymity in
the social order is confined to this particular case, for that would be

1 . Such people could say with Muhyi ’d-Dln ibn al- ‘Arab!: ‘My heart has
become capable of all forms: it is a pasture for gazelles and a monastery for Chris-
tian monks, and a temple for idols, and the Kaabah of the pilgrim, and the table of
the Thorah and the book of the Quran. I am the religion of Love, whatever road his
camels may take; my religion and my faith are the true religion.’

2 . On this subject, see A.K. Coomaraswamy, ‘ Akimchaiimi : Self-Naughting’,
New Indian Antiquary (Bombay) 3 (1940).

64 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

to give way to the illusion of the distinction between ‘sacred’ and
‘profane’, a distinction which, let it be said once more, does not exist
and has not even any meaning in strictly traditional societies. What
has been said about the ‘ritual’ character of the whole of human
activity in such societies explains this sufficiently, and, particularly
as far as the crafts are concerned, it has been shown that their char-
acter was such that it was thought right to speak of ‘priesthood’ in
connection with them; there is therefore nothing remarkable in the
fact that in them anonymity was the rule, because it represents true
conformity to the ‘order’ which the artifex must apply himself to
realize as perfectly as possible in everything he does.

Here an objection might be raised: the craft must conform to the
intrinsic nature of him who practices it, and we have seen that the
product will then necessarily express his nature, and that when that
expression is really adequate the product can be regarded as perfect
of its kind, or as being a ‘masterpiece’; now this nature is the essen-
tial aspect of the individuality, the aspect defined by the ‘name’; is
there not something here that seems to point toward the very
reverse of anonymity? In order to answer this, it must first be
pointed out that, despite all the false Western interpretations of
notions such as those of Moksha and Nirvana , the extinction of the
‘ego’ is in no sense an annihilation of the being, on the contrary, it
implies something like a ‘sublimation’ of its possibilities (without
which, it may be remarked in passing, the very idea of ‘resurrection’
would have no meaning); doubtless the artifex , who is still in the
individual human state, can do no more than tend toward such a
‘sublimation’, but the very fact that he keeps his anonymity will be
for him the sign of this ‘transforming’ tendency. It can also be said
that, in relation to society itself, it is not inasmuch as he is ‘such and
such a person’ that the artifex produces his work, but inasmuch as
he fulfils a certain ‘function’ that is properly ‘organic’ and not
‘mechanical’ (marking thus the fundamental difference between
such work and modern industry), and he must identify himself as
far as possible with this function in his work; and this identification,
while it is the means of his own ‘spiritual discipline’, gives to some
extent the measure of the effectiveness of his participation in the tra-
ditional organization, into which he is incorporated by the practice

THE TWOFOLD SIGNIFICANCE OF ANONYMITY 65

of his particular craft itself and in which he occupies the place truly
suited to his nature. Thus, however one looks at the matter, ano-
nymity appears to be in one way or another the normal thing; and
even when everything that it implies in principle cannot be effec-
tively realized, there must at least be a relative anonymity, in the
sense that, particularly where there has been an initiation based on
the craft, the profane or ‘exterior’ individuality known as ‘such an
one, son of such an one’ will disappear in everything connected
with the practice of the craft . 3

If now we move to the other extreme, that represented by modern
industry, we see that here too the worker is anonymous, but it is be-
cause his product expresses nothing of himself and is not really his
work, the part he plays in its production being purely ‘mechanical’.
Indeed the worker as such really has no ‘name’, because in his work
he is but a mere numerical ‘unit’ with no qualities of his own, and he
could be replaced by any other equivalent ‘unit’, that is, by any other
worker, without any change in what is produced by their work . 4
Thus, as was said earlier, his activity no longer comprises anything
truly human, and so far from interpreting or at least reflecting
something ‘supra-human’ it is itself brought down to the ‘infra-
human’, and it even tends toward the lowest degree of that condi-
tion, that is to say, toward a modality as completely quantitative as
any that can be realized in the manifested world. This ‘mechanical’
activity of the worker represents only a particular case (actually the
most typical that can be found under present conditions, because

3. It will easily be understood from this why, in craft initiations such as
Compagnonnage just as much as in religious orders, it is forbidden to designate an
individual by his profane name; there is still a name, and therefore an individuality,
but it is an individuality already ‘transformed’, at least virtually, by the very fact of
initiation. [Regarding the Compagnonnage, see Perspectives on Initiation, chap. 5,
n6; also Studies in Freemasonry and the Compagnonnage. Ed.]

4. There could only be a quantitative difference, because one worker may work
faster than another (and all the ‘ability’ that is demanded of him consists only in
such speed), but from the qualitative point of view the product would always be the
same, since it is determined neither by the worker’s mental conception of the work
nor by a manual dexterity directed to giving it its outward shape, but only by the
performance of the machine, the man having nothing to do but to ensure its proper
working.

66 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

industry is the domain in which modern conceptions have suc-
ceeded in expressing themselves most completely) of the way of life
that the peculiar ‘idealism’ of our contemporaries seeks to impose
on all human individuals in all the circumstances of their existence.
This is an immediate consequence of the so-called ‘egalitarian’ ten-
dency, in other words, of the tendency to uniformity, which
demands that individuals shall be treated as mere numerical ‘units’,
thus realizing equality by a leveling down, for that is the only direc-
tion in which equality can be reached ‘in the limit’, that is to say,
in which it is possible, if not to reach it altogether (for as we have
seen to do so is incompatible with the very conditions of manifested
existence) at least to continue indefinitely to approach it, until the
‘stopping point’ that will mark the end of the present world is
attained.

Anyone who wonders what happens to the individual in such
conditions will find that, because of the ever growing predomi-
nance of quantity over quality in the individual, he is so to speak
reduced to his substantial aspect, called in the Hindu doctrine rupa
(and in fact he can never lose form without thereby losing all exist-
ence, for form is what defines individuality as such), and this
amounts to saying that he becomes scarcely more than what would
be described in current language as ‘a body without a soul’, and that
in the most literal sense of the words. From such an individual the
qualitative or essential aspect has indeed almost disappeared
(‘almost’, because the limit can never actually be reached); and as
that aspect is precisely the aspect called nama, the individual really
no longer has any ‘name’ that belongs to him, because he is emptied
of the qualities which that name should express; he is thus really
‘anonymous’, but in the inferior sense of the word. This is the ano-
nymity of the ‘masses’ of which the individual is part and in which
he loses himself, those ‘masses’ that are no more than a collection of
similar individuals, regarded purely and simply as so many arith-
metical ‘units’. ‘Units’ of that sort can be counted, and the collectiv-
ity they make up can thus be numerically evaluated, the result being
by definition only a quantity; but in no way can each one of them be
given a denomination indicating that he is distinguished from the
others by some qualitative difference.

THE TWOFOLD SIGNIFICANCE OF ANONYMITY 67

It has been said that the individual loses himself in the ‘masses’ or
at least that he tends more and more to lose himself; this ‘confusion’
in quantitative multiplicity corresponds, again by inversion, to
‘fusion in the principial unity. In that unity the being possesses all
the fullness of his possibilities ‘transformed’, so that it can be said
that distinction understood in the qualitative sense is there carried
to its supreme degree, while at the same time all separation has dis-
appeared ; 5 in pure quantity, on the other hand, separation is at its
maximum, since in quantity resides the very principle of separativ-
ity, and the being is the more ‘separated’ and shut up in himself the
more narrowly his possibilities are limited, that is, the less his essen-
tial aspect comprises of quality; but at the same time, since he is to
that extent less distinguished qualitatively from the bulk of the
‘masses’, he really tends to become confused with it. The word ‘con-
fusion’ is particularly appropriate here because it evokes the wholly
potential indistinction of ‘chaos’, and nothing less than chaos is in
fact in question, since the individual tends to be reduced to his sub-
stantial aspect alone, which is what the scholastics would call a
‘matter without form’ where all is in potency and nothing in act, so
that the final term, if it could be attained, would be a real ‘dissolu-
tion’ of everything that has any positive reality in the individual;
and for the very reason that they are extreme opposites, this confu-
sion of beings in uniformity appears as a sinister and ‘satanic’ par-
ody of their fusion in unity.

5. This is the meaning of Eckhart’s expression ‘fused, but not confused’, which
A.K. Coomaraswamy, in the article mentioned earlier, very pointedly compares
with the meaning of the Sanskrit expression bhedabheda , ‘distinction without dif-
ference’, that is, without separation.

10

THE ILLUSION
OF STATISTICS

Returning now to the consideration of the more specifi-
cally ‘scientific’ point of view as the modern world understands it,
its chief characteristic is obviously that it seeks to bring everything
down to quantity, anything that cannot be so treated being left out
of account and is regarded as more or less non-existent. Nowadays
people commonly think and say that anything that cannot be ‘put
into figures’, or in other words, cannot be expressed in purely quan-
titative terms, for that reason lacks any ‘scientific’ value; and this
assumption holds sway not only in ‘physics’ in the ordinary sense of
the word, but in all the sciences ‘officially’ recognized as such in
these days, and as we have seen, even the psychological domain is
not beyond its reach. It has been made sufficiently clear in earlier
chapters that this outlook involves losing touch with everything
that is truly essential, in the strictest interpretation of the word; also
that the ‘residue’ that alone comes within the grasp of such a science
is in reality quite incapable of explaining anything whatever; but
there is one highly characteristic feature of modern science that
deserves further emphasis, for it indicates with particular distinct-
ness how far science deludes itself about what can be deduced from
mere numerical evaluations; this feature is moreover directly con-
nected with the subject of the previous chapter.

The tendency to uniformity, which extends into the ‘natural’
domain and is not confined to the human domain alone, leads to
the idea, which even becomes established as a sort of principle (only
it ought to be called a ‘pseudo-principle’), that there exist repeti-
tions of identical phenomena; but this, by virtue of the ‘principle of

THE ILLUSION OF STATISTICS 69

indiscernibles’, is no more than a sheer impossibility. A good exam-
ple of this idea is afforded by the current assertion that ‘the same
causes always produce the same effects’, and this, enunciated in that
form, is inherently absurd, for there cannot in fact ever be the same
causes or the same effects in a successional order of manifestation; is
it not quite commonplace for people to go so far as to say that ‘his-
tory repeats itself, whereas the truth is only that there are analogical
correspondences between certain periods and certain events? It
would be correct to say that causes that are comparable one to
another in certain connections produce effects similarly comparable
in the same connections; but, alongside the resemblances, which
can if desired be held to represent a kind of partial identity, there are
always and inevitably differences, because of the simple fact that
there are by hypothesis two distinct things in question and not only
one single thing. It is true that these differences, for the very reason
that they represent qualitative distinctions, become less as the
degree of manifestation of the things considered becomes lower,
and that consequently there is then a corresponding increase of
resemblance, so that in some cases a superficial and incomplete
observation might give the impression of a sort of identity; but
actually differences are never wholly eliminated, and this must be so
in the case of anything that is not beneath the level of manifestation
altogether. Even if there were no differences left other than those
arising from the ever-changing influence of time and place, they
could still never be entirely negligible; it is true however that this
cannot be understood unless account is taken of the fact that real
space and time are not, as modern conceptions would have them,
merely homogenous containers and modes of pure quantity, but
that on the contrary temporal and spatial determinations have also
a qualitative aspect. However that may be, it is legitimate to ask how
people who neglect differences, and as it were refuse to see them, can
possibly claim that an ‘exact’ science has been built up; strictly and
in fact there can be no ‘exact’ science but pure mathematics, which
happens to be concerned with the domain of quantity alone. That
being the case, all the rest of modern science is, and can only be, a
tissue of more or less crude approximations, and that not only in its
applications, in which everyone is compelled to acknowledge the

70 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

inevitable imperfection of the means of observation and measure-
ment, but even from a purely theoretical point of view as well: the
unrealizable suppositions that provide almost the entire foundation
of ‘classical’ mechanics, while these in turn provide the basis for the
whole of modern physics, could be used to furnish a multitude of
characteristic examples . 1

The founding of a science more or less on the notion of repetition
brings in its train yet another delusion of a quantitative kind, the
delusion that consists in thinking that the accumulation of a large
number of facts can be of use by itself as ‘proof’ of a theory; never-
theless, even a little reflection will make it evident that facts of the
same kind are always indefinite in multitude, so that they can never
all be taken into account, quite apart from the consideration that
the same facts usually fit several different theories equally well. It will
be said that the establishment of a greater number of facts does at
least give more ‘probability’ to a theory; but to say so is to admit that
no certitude can be arrived at in that way, and that therefore the
conclusions promulgated have nothing ‘exact’ about them; it is also
an admission of the wholly ‘empirical’ character of modern science,
although, by a strange irony, its partisans are pleased to accuse of
‘empiricism’ the knowledge of the ancients, whereas exactly the
opposite is the truth: for this ancient knowledge, of the true nature
of which they have no idea whatever, started from principles and
not from experimental observations, so that it can truly be said that
profane science is built up exactly the opposite way round to tradi-
tional science. Furthermore, insufficient as ‘empiricism’ is in itself,
that of modern science is very far from being integral, since it
neglects or sets aside a considerable part of the evidence of experi-
ence, the very part that has a specifically qualitative character; for
perceptual experience cannot, any more than any other kind of
experience, have a bearing on pure quantity as its object, and the
nearer is the approach to pure quantity the greater is the distance

1. Where, for example, has anyone ever seen a ‘heavy material point’, or a ‘per-
fectly elastic solid’, an ‘unstretchable and weightless thread’, or any other of the no
less imaginary ‘entities’ with which this science is replete, though it is regarded as
being above all else ‘rational’.

THE ILLUSION OF STATISTICS 7 1

from the reality which nevertheless is supposed to be grasped and to
be explained; in fact it is not at all difficult to see that the most
recent theories are also those that have the least relation to reality,
and most readily replace it by ‘conventions’. These conventions can-
not be said to be wholly arbitrary, for it is not really possible that
they should be so, since the making of any convention necessarily
involves there being some reason for making it, but at least they are
as arbitrary as possible; that is to say, they have as it were only a
minimum of foundation in the true nature of things.

It has just been said that modern science, simply because it tries
to be entirely quantitative, fails to take account of differences
between particular facts even in cases where those differences are
most accentuated, and such cases are naturally those in which qual-
itative elements have the greatest predominance over quantitative
elements; and it can be said that this is why the greater part of reality
eludes it, and why the partial and inferior aspect of truth that it can
grasp in spite of all its failings (because total error could have no
meaning other than that of pure negation) is reduced to almost
nothing. This is more particularly the case when facts within the
human order come under consideration, for these are the most
qualitative of all those that modern science regards as included in its
domain; science is determined nonetheless to treat them exactly like
other facts, such as are concerned not only with ‘organized matter’
but even with ‘matter in the raw’, for it has in the end only one
method, which it applies uniformly to the most diverse objects, pre-
cisely because, by reason of its special point of view, it is incapable of
perceiving what are the essential differences between facts. And it is
above all in the human order, whether in the field of history or ‘soci-
ology’ or ‘psychology’ or any other kind of study that could be
named, that the fallacious character of the ‘statistics’ to which the
moderns attach so much importance becomes most apparent; here
as elsewhere, statistics really consist only in the counting up of a
greater or lesser number of facts that are all supposed to be exactly
alike, for if they were not so their addition would be meaningless;
and it is evident that the picture thus obtained represents a defor-
mation of the truth, and the less the facts taken into account are
alike or really comparable, or the greater is the relative importance

72 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

and complexity of the qualitative elements involved, the worse is the
deformation. Nonetheless, the setting out of figures and calcula-
tions gives to the statistician, as it is intended to give to other people,
a kind of illusion of ‘exactitude’ that might be called ‘pseudo-mathe-
matical’; but in fact, without its being noticed and because of the
strength of preconceived ideas, almost any desired conclusion is
drawn indifferently from such figures, so completely without signifi-
cance are they in themselves. The proof of this is that the same sta-
tistics in the hands of several experts, even though they may all be
‘specialists’ in the same line, often give rise, according to the respec-
tive theories of the experts, to quite different conclusions, which
may even sometimes be diametrically opposed. That being the case,
the self-styled ‘exact’ sciences of the moderns, to the extent that they
make use of statistics and go so far as to extract from them predic-
tions for the future (relying always on the supposed identicality of
the facts taken into account, whether past or future), are really no
more than mere ‘conjectural’ sciences, to use an expression freely
employed by the promoters of a kind of modern astrology dubbed
‘scientific’; and in employing this term they admit more freely than
many other people what their astrology really consists in, for it cer-
tainly has only the vaguest and most remote connection, perhaps no
more than that of a common terminology, with the true traditional
astrology of the ancients, which is today as completely lost as all
other knowledge of the same order. This ‘neo-astrology’ does actu-
ally make great use of statistics in its efforts to establish itself ‘empir-
ically’ and without attaching itself to any principle, statistics indeed
playing a preponderant part in it; and that is the very reason why it
is thought right to adorn it with the epithet ‘scientific’, whereby the
scientific character of the true astrology is implicitly denied, and
this denial is again very significant and very characteristic of the
modern mentality.

To assume that facts are identical when they are really only of the
same kind, or comparable only in certain respects, while it contrib-
utes toward the illusion of an ‘exact’ science, as has already been
explained, satisfies at the same time the desire for an excessive simp-
lification, which is also strikingly characteristic of the modern men-
tality, so much so that this mentality could, without admitting any

THE ILLUSION OF STATISTICS 73

ironical intention, be qualified as ‘simplistic’ as much in its ‘scien-
tific’ conceptions as in all its other manifestations. These ideas all
hang together: the desire for simplification necessarily accompanies
the tendency to reduce everything to the quantitative, and it rein-
forces that tendency, for obviously nothing can be simpler than
quantity; if a being or a thing could successfully be shorn of all its
distinctive qualities, the ‘residue’ thus obtained would indeed be
endowed with a maximum of simplicity: at the limit this extreme
simplicity would be such as can only belong to pure quantity, being
then the simplicity of the exactly similar ‘units’ that constitute
numerical multiplicity— a point important enough to warrant
more detailed consideration.

11

UNITY

AND ‘SIMPLICITY’

We have seen that a desire for simplification can become illegiti-
mate or pernicious and that it has become a distinctive feature of
the modern mentality; this desire is so strong that certain philoso-
phers have given way to it in the scientific domain, and have gone to
the length of presenting it as a sort of logical ‘pseudo-principle’, in
the form of a statement that ‘nature always takes the simplest
course’. This is a perfectly gratuitous postulate, for there does not
seem to be any reason why nature should work in that way and not
in any other; many conditions other than simplicity can enter into
its workings, and can outweigh simplicity to such an extent that
nature seems, at least from our point of view, often to take a course
that is extremely complicated. Indeed, this particular ‘pseudo-prin-
ciple’ amounts to no more than a wish arising from a sort of ‘mental
laziness’: it is desired that things should be as simple as possible,
because if they really were so they would be so much the easier to
understand; and all this is quite in accordance with the very modern
and profane conception of a science that must be ‘within the reach
of all’, but that is obviously only possible if it is so simple as to be
positively ‘infantile’, and if all considerations of a superior or really
profound order are rigorously excluded from it.

Even shortly before the beginning of modern times properly so
called there can be found something like an early indication of this
state of mind in the scholastic adage: entia non sunt multiplicanda
praeter necessitatem. 1 All is well if the application of this adage is

1. This adage, like another according to which nihil est in intellectu quod non
prius fuerit in sensu (and this is the first formulation of what was later to be called

UNITY AND ‘SIMPLICITY’ 75

limited to purely hypothetical speculations, but then it becomes of
no interest whatever, except within the domain of pure mathemat-
ics, for there at least it is legitimate for anyone to confine himself to
working on mental constructions without having to relate them to
anything else; he can ‘simplify’ then as much as he likes, just because
he is concerned only with quantity, for insofar as quantity is consid-
ered in itself and by itself, its combinations are not comprised in the
effective order of manifestation. On the other hand, as soon as mat-
ters of fact need to be taken into account, it is quite another affair,
and it becomes impossible not to recognize that ‘nature’ herself
seems to go out of her way to multiply beings praeter necessitatem ;
what kind of logical satisfaction can anyone experience in contem-
plating, for instance, the multitude and the prodigious variety of
the kinds of animals and plants that live around him? Surely this is a
long way from the simplicity postulated by those philosophers who
want to twist reality to suit the convenience of their own under-
standing and the understanding of the ‘average’ of their like; and if
such is the case in the corporeal world, in itself a very limited
domain of existence, how much more must it be the case in the
other worlds; must it not indeed then be indefinitely much more
so ? 2 In order to cut short the discussion of this subject, it is only
necessary to recall that, as has been explained elsewhere, everything
that is possible is for that reason real in its own order and according
to its own mode, and that since universal possibility is necessarily
infinite everything that is other than a sheer impossibility has its

‘sensualism’) is among those that can be assigned to no particular author, and it is
likely that they belong only to the period of decadence of scholasticism, that is, to a
time that is in fact, despite current ‘chronology’, not so much the end of the Middle
Ages as the beginning of modern times— provided that it is right, as has been sug-
gested elsewhere, to date that beginning as far back as the fourteenth century.

2. In this connection the scholastic adage of the decadent period could be con-
trasted with the conceptions of Saint Thomas Aquinas himself concerning the
angelic state, ubi omne individuum est species infima. This means that the differ-
ences between the angels are not analogous to the ‘individual differences’ of our
world (the word individuum thus being not entirely correct here, as supra-individ-
ual states are in question), but to ‘specific differences’; the true reason for this is
that each angel represents as it were the expression of a divine attribute, as is shown
clearly by the constitution of the names in the Hebrew angelology.

76 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

place therein: what else, then, but this same desire for a miscon-
ceived simplification drives philosophers, when evolving their ‘sys-
tems’, always to try to set a limit to universal possibility in one way
or another ? 3

It is a particularly strange fact that the tendency to simplicity
understood in this sense, together with the tendency to uniformity,
which in a sense runs parallel to it, is taken by people whom it
affects as a striving for ‘unification’; but it is really ‘unification’
upside down, like everything else that is directed toward the domain
of pure quantity, or toward the lower and substantial pole of exist-
ence; it is thus another example of that sort of caricature of unity
that has already been considered from other points of view. If true
unity is also to be described as ‘simple’, that word must be under-
stood in quite a different sense, so that it conveys only the essential
indivisibility of true unity, and so as to exclude the idea that unity is
in any way ‘composite’, and this implies that it cannot rightly be
conceived as made up of parts of any kind. A sort of parody of the
indivisibility of unity may be found in the indivisibility that some
philosophers and physicists attribute to their ‘atoms’, but they fail to
see that it is not compatible with the nature of the corporeal, for a
body is by definition extended, and extension is indefinitely divisi-
ble, so that a body is of necessity always made up of parts, and it
does not make any difference how small it is or may be supposed to
be, so that the notion of indivisible corpuscles is self-contradictory;
but a notion of that kind evidently fits in well with a search for sim-
plicity carried to such lengths that it can no longer correspond to
the lowest degree of reality.

On the other hand, although the principial unity is absolutely
indivisible, it can nevertheless be said to be of an extreme complex-
ity, since it contains ‘eminently’ all that constitutes the essence or
qualitative side of manifested beings, when considered from the

3. That is why Leibnitz said that ‘every system is true in what it affirms and false
in what it denies,’ and this means that it contains an amount of truth proportional
to the amount of positive reality included in it, and an amount of error corre-
sponding to the reality excluded; it is important to add that it is precisely the nega-
tive and limitative side of a ‘system’ that constitutes it as such.

UNITY AND SIMPLICITY 77

point of view of a ‘descent’ into lower degrees. It is enough to go
back to the explanation given above of the way in which the ‘extinc-
tion of the ego’ ought to be understood in order to see that unity is
that wherein all quality subsists, ‘transformed’ and in its fullness,
and that distinction, freed from all ‘separative’ limitation, is indeed
carried therein to its highest level. As soon as the domain of mani-
fested existence is entered, limitation appears in the form of the
particular conditions that determine each state or each mode of
manifestation; in the course of a descent to ever lower levels of
existence limitation becomes ever narrower, and the possibilities
inherent in the nature of beings become more restricted in range,
which amounts to saying that the essence of these beings is corre-
spondingly simplified; this simplification continues progressively
toward a lower level than that of existence itself, that is to say
toward the domain of pure quantity, where it is finally brought to
its maximum through the complete suppression of every qualitative
determination.

Thus it can be seen that simplification follows strictly the
descending course which, in current terms as inspired by Cartesian
dualism, would be described as leading from ‘spirit’ toward ‘matter’:
inadequate as these terms may be as substitutes for ‘essence’ and
‘substance’, they can perhaps usefully be employed here for the sake
of better understanding. It is therefore all the more extraordinary
that anyone should attempt to apply this kind of simplification to
things that belong to the ‘spiritual’ domain itself, or at least to as
much of it as people are still able to conceive, for they go so far as to -
extend it to religious conceptions as well as to philosophical or sci-
entific conceptions. The most typical example is that of Protestant-
ism, in which simplification takes the form both of an almost
complete suppression of rites, together with an attribution of pre-
dominance to morality over doctrine; and the doctrine itself
becomes more and more simplified and diminished so that it is
reduced to almost nothing, or at most to a few rudimentary formu-
las that anyone can interpret in any way that suits him. Moreover,
Protestantism in its many forms is the only religious production
of the modern spirit, and it arose at a time when that spirit had not
yet come to the point of rejecting all religion, but was on the way

7 8 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

toward doing so by virtue of the anti-traditional tendencies which
are inherent in it and which really make it what it is. At the end-
point of this evolution’ (as it would be called today), religion is
replaced by ‘religiosity’, that is to say by a vague sentimentality hav-
ing no real significance; it is this that is acclaimed as ‘progress’, and
it shows clearly how all normal relations are reversed in the modern
mentality, for people try to see in it a ‘spiritualization’ of religion, as
if the ‘spirit’ were a mere empty frame or an ‘ideal’ as nebulous as it
is insignificant. This is what some of our contemporaries call a
‘purified religion’, but it is so only insofar as it is emptied of all posi-
tive content and has no longer any connection with any reality
whatsoever.

Another thing worth noting is that all the self-styled ‘reformers’
constantly advertise their claim to be returning to a ‘primitive sim-
plicity’, which has certainly never existed except in their imagina-
tions. This may sometimes only be a convenient way of hiding the
true character of their innovations, but it may also very often be a
delusion of which they themselves are the victims, for it is fre-
quently very difficult to determine to what extent the apparent pro-
moters of the anti-traditional spirit are really conscious of the part
they are playing, for they could not play it at all unless they them-
selves had a twisted mentality. Furthermore, it is difficult to see how
the claim to primitive simplicity can be reconciled with the idea of
‘progress’, of which they simultaneously claim to be agents; the con-
tradiction is enough by itself to indicate that there is something
really abnormal in all this. However that may be, and confining
attention to the idea of ‘primitive simplicity’, there seems to be no
reason whatever why things should always begin by being simple
and continue to get more complex: on the contrary, considering
that the germ of any being must necessarily contain the virtuality of
all that the being will be in the future, so that all the possibilities to
be developed in the course of its existence must be included in the
germ from the start, the conclusion that the origin of all things must
really be exceedingly complex is inevitable. This gives an exact pic-
ture of the qualitative complexity of essence; the germ is small only
in relation to quantity or substance, and by symbolically transpos-
ing the idea of ‘size’ it can be deduced through inverse analogy that

UNITY AND ‘ SIMPLICITY ’ 79

what is least in quantity must be greatest in quality . 4 In a similar
way every tradition at its origin contains the entire doctrine, com-
prehending in principle the totality of the developments and adap-
tations that may legitimately proceed from it, together with the
totality of the applications to which they may give rise in all
domains; human interventions can do nothing but restrict and
diminish it, if they do not denature it altogether, and the work of all
‘reformers’ really consists in nothing more than that.

Another peculiar thing is that modernists of all sorts (taking into
account not those of the West alone, but also those of the East, for
the latter are in any case merely ‘Westernized’), while they boast of
doctrinal simplicity as representing ‘progress’ in the field of religion,
often speak as if religion ought to have been made for idiots, or at
least as if they supposed that the people they are speaking to must
inevitably be idiots; do they really think that by asserting, rightly or
wrongly, that a doctrine is simple they are suggesting to a man of
the most moderate intelligence a valid reason for adopting it? This is
in the end no more than a manifestation of the ‘democratic’ idea, in
the light of which, as was said earlier, it is desired that science too
shall be ‘within the reach of all’. It is scarcely necessary to remark
that these same ‘modernists’ are always, as a necessary consequence
of their attitude, the declared enemies of all esoterism, for it goes
without saying that esoterism, which is by definition only the con-
cern of an elect, cannot be simple, so that its negation appears as an
obligatory first stage in all attempts at simplification. As for religion
properly so called, or more generally the exterior part of any tradf 1
tion, it must admittedly be such that everyone can understand
something of it, according to the range of his capacity, and in that
sense it is addressed to all; but this does not mean that it must there-
fore be reduced to such a minimum that the most ignorant (this
word not being used with reference to profane instruction, which
has no importance here) or the least intelligent can grasp it: quite to

4. The Gospel parable of the mustard seed may be recalled here, as also the sim-
ilar texts from the Upanishads quoted elsewhere (see Man and His Becoming accord-
ing to the Vedanta , chap. 3 ), and it may also be added in this connection that the
Messiah himself is called ‘Seed’ in a number of biblical passages.

80 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

the contrary, there must be in it something that is so to speak at the
level of the possibilities of every individual, however exalted they
may be, for thus alone can it furnish an appropriate ‘support’ to the
interior aspect which, in any unmutilated tradition, is its necessary
complement and belongs wholly to the initiatic order. But the mod-
ernists, in specifically rejecting esoterism and initiation, thereby
deny that religious doctrines contain in themselves any profound
significance; thus it is that, in their pretension to ‘spiritualize’ reli-
gion, they fall into its opposite, the narrowest and crudest ‘literal-
ism’, in which the spirit is most completely lacking, thus affording a
striking example of the fact that what Pascal said is often all too
true— ‘He who tries to play the angel plays the beast.’

But that is not quite all that need be said about ‘primitive simplic-
ity’, for there is at any rate one sense in which that expression can
find a realistic application, and that is when the indistinction of
‘chaos’ is in question, for ‘chaos’ is in a way ‘primitive’ since it is ‘in
the beginning’; but it is not there by itself, since all manifestation
necessarily presupposes simultaneously and correlatively both
essence and substance, and ‘chaos’ only represents its substantial
base. If that were what the partisans of ‘primitive simplicity’ meant
there would be no need to disagree with them, for the tendency to
simplification would reach its end-point in precisely that indistinc-
tion, if it could be realized up to the limit of its ultimate conse-
quences; but it is necessary to point out that this ultimate simplicity,
being beneath manifestation and not in it, would in no way corre-
spond to a true ‘return to origins’. In this connection and in order to
resolve an apparent antinomy, a clear distinction must be made
between the two points of view, which are respectively related to the
two poles of existence: when it is said that the formation of the
world started from ‘chaos’, then the point of view is solely the sub-
stantial, and the beginning must then be regarded as timeless, for
obviously time does not exist in ‘chaos’ but only in the ‘cosmos’, so
that if the order of development of manifestation is being taken into
account (that order being reflected in the domain of corporeal exist-
ence, by virtue of the conditions which define that existence, as an
order of temporal succession), the starting-point must not be the
substantial pole, but the essential pole, the manifestation of which,

UNITY AND 'SIMPLICITY' 8l

in conformity with cyclic laws, takes the form of a continuous reces-
sion, or of a descent toward the substantial pole. The ‘creation’,
inasmuch as it is a resolution of ‘chaos’, is in a sense ‘instantaneous’
and is properly the biblical Fiat Lux; but it is the primordial Light
itself that is really the origination of the ‘cosmos’, and this Light is
the ‘pure spirit’ in which are the essences of all things; such being its
beginning, the manifested world cannot possibly do otherwise than
move in a downward direction, getting ever nearer and nearer to
‘materiality’.

12

THE HATRED
OF SECRECY

A point THAT HAS ONLY BEEN TOUCHED ON INCIDENTALLY in

earlier chapters must now be elaborated. It is what may be called
the tendency to ‘popularization’ (this word being another of those
that are particularly significant as pointers to the nature of the
modern mentality), in other words, the pretension to put every-
thing ‘within the reach of all’, to which attention has already been
drawn as being a consequence of ‘democratic’ conceptions, and that
amounts in the end to a desire to bring all knowledge down to the
level of the lowest intelligences. It would be only too easy to point
out the multiple ineptitudes that result, generally speaking, from
the ill-considered diffusion of an instruction that is claimed to be
equally distributed to all, in identical form and by identical meth-
ods; this can only end, as has already been said, in a sort of leveling
down to the lowest— here as elsewhere quality being sacrificed to
quantity. It is no less true to say that the profane instruction in
question has nothing to do with any kind of knowledge in the true
sense of the word, and that it contains nothing that is in the least
degree profound; but, apart from its insignificance and its ineffectu-
ality, what makes it really pernicious is above all the fact that it con-
trives to be taken for what it is not, that it tends to deny everything
that surpasses it, and so smothers all possibilities belonging to a
higher domain; it even seems probable that it is contrived specially
for that purpose, for modern ‘uniformization’ necessarily implies a
hatred of all superiority.

A still more surprising thing is that some people these days think
that they can expound traditional doctrines by adopting profane

THE HATRED OF SECRECY 83

instruction itself as a sort of model, without taking the least account
of the nature of traditional doctrines and of the essential differences
that exist between them and everything that is today called by the
names of ‘science’ and ‘philosophy’, from which they are separated
by a real abyss; in so doing they must of necessity distort these doc-
trines completely by over-simplification and by only allowing the
most superficial meaning to appear, for otherwise their pretensions
must remain completely unjustified. In any case, by such means the
modern spirit penetrates right into what is most opposed to it, rad-
ically and by definition; and it is not difficult to appreciate the dis-
solving effect of the results, though those who make themselves the
instruments of this kind of penetration may not grasp their nature,
and often act in good faith and with no clear intention. The deca-
dence of religious doctrine in the West and the corresponding total
loss of esoterism show well enough what may happen in the end if
that way of looking at things were one day to become general even
in the East as well; the danger is so serious that it must be clearly
pointed out while there is yet time.

Most incredible of all is the main argument put forward in justi-
fication of their attitude by this new variety of ‘propagandist’. One
of them recently wrote to the effect that, while it is true that restric-
tions were formerly applied to the diffusion of certain sorts of
knowledge, there is no longer any reason to observe them nowa-
days, because (the phrase that follows must be quoted word for
word so that no suspicion of exaggeration can arise) ‘the general
level of culture has been raised, and the spirit of man has been made
ready to receive the integral teaching.’ Here may be seen as clearly as
possible the confusion between traditional teaching and profane
instruction, the latter being described by the word ‘culture’, which
has become one of its most frequent designations in our day; but
culture’ is something that has not the remotest connection with
traditional teaching or with the aptitude for receiving it, and what is
more, since the so-called raising of the ‘general level’ has as its inev-
itable counterpart the disappearance of the intellectual elect, it can
he said that ‘culture’ represents the exact opposite of a preparation
for traditional teaching. There is good reason to wonder how a
Hindu (for it is a Hindu who was quoted above) can be completely

84 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

ignorant of our present position in the Kali-Yuga , and can go so far
as to say that ‘the time has come when the whole system of the
Vedanta can be set forth to the public,’ for the most elementary
knowledge of cyclic laws compels the conclusion that the time is less
favorable than it ever was. It has never been possible to place the
Vedanta ‘within the reach of the common man’, for whom inciden-
tally it was never intended, and it is all the more certainly not possi-
ble today, for it is obvious enough that the ‘common man’ has never
been more totally uncomprehending. And finally, the truth is that
everything that represents traditional knowledge of a really pro-
found order, and therefore corresponds to what must be meant by
‘integral teaching’ (for if those words have really any meaning, initi-
atic teaching properly so called must be comprised in it), becomes
more and more difficult of access, and becomes so everywhere; in
face of the invasion of the modern and profane spirit it is clear that
things could not be otherwise; how then can anyone be so far
unaware of reality as to assert the very opposite, and as calmly as if
he were enunciating the least contestable of truths?

In the case quoted as an example for the purpose of ‘illustrating’ a
particular mentality, the reasons given to justify the special interest
that the propagation of the Vedantic teaching might have nowadays
are no less extraordinary. ‘The development of social ideas and of
political institutions’ is first put forward in this connection; but even
if it really is a ‘development’ (and it would in any case be desirable to
specify in what direction), this too has no more connection with the
understanding of metaphysical doctrine than has the diffusion of
profane instruction; it is enough to look at the extent to which polit-
ical preoccupations, wherever they have been introduced into any
Eastern country, are prejudicial to the knowledge of traditional
truths, in order to conclude that it would be more justifiable to
speak of an incompatibility, at least in practice, than of a possible
concordance between these two ‘developments’. It is not easy to see
what link ‘social life’, in the purely profane sense in which it is con-
ceived today, could possibly h^ve with spirituality, to which, on the
other hand, it brings nothing but obstacles: such links obviously
existed when social life was integrated into a traditional civilization,
but it is precisely the modern spirit that has destroyed them, or that

THE HATRED OF SECRECY 85

tries to destroy them wherever they still persist; what then can be
expected of a ‘development’ of which the most characteristic feature
is that it works in direct opposition to all spirituality?

The same author puts forward yet another reason: ‘Besides,’ says
he, ‘it is the same for the Vedanta as for the other truths of science;
there are no longer today any scientific secrets; science does not hes-
itate to publish the most recent discoveries.’ True enough, profane
science is only made for ‘the public at large’, and since it came into
being such has been the only justification for its existence; all too
obviously it is really nothing more than it appears to be, for it keeps
itself entirely on the surface of things, and it can be said to do so,
not on principle, but rather through a lack of principle; certainly
there is nothing in it worth the trouble of keeping secret, or more
accurately, worth reserving to the use of an elite, and anyhow an
elite would have no use for anything of that sort. In any case, what
kind of assimilation can anyone hope to establish between the so-
called ‘truths’ and ‘most recent discoveries’ of profane science and
the teachings of a doctrine such as the Vedanta or any other tradi-
tional doctrine, even one that is more or less exterior? It is a case of
the same confusion all the time, and it is permissible to ask to what
extent anyone who perpetrates it with such insistence can have any
understanding of the doctrine he wants to teach; there can really be
no accommodation between the traditional spirit and the modern
spirit, any concession made to the latter being necessarily at the T .
expense of the former, since the modern spirit consists fundamen-
tally in the direct negation of everything that constitutes the tradi-
tional spirit.

The truth is that the modern spirit implies in all who are affected
by it in any degree a real hatred of what is secret, and of whatever
seems to come more or less near to being secret, in any and every
domain; and this affords an opportunity for a more precise explana-
tion of the point. Strictly speaking it cannot even be said that ‘pop-
ularization’ of the doctrines is dangerous, at least so long as it is
only a question of their theoretical side; for it would be merely use-
less, even if it were possible. But in fact truths of a certain order by
their very nature resist all ‘popularization’: however clearly they are
set out (it being understood that they are set out such as they are in

86 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

their true significance and without subjecting them to any distor-
tion) only those who are qualified to understand them will under-
stand them, and for all others they will be as if they did not exist.
This has nothing to do with ‘realization’ and the means appropriate
to it, for in that field there is absolutely nothing that can have any
effective value otherwise than from within a regular initiatic organi-
zation; from a theoretical point of view reserve can only be justified
by considerations of mere opportunity, and so by purely contingent
reasons, which does not mean that such reasons need be negligible.
In the end, the real secret, the only secret than can never be betrayed
in any way, resides uniquely in the inexpressible, which is by the
same token incommunicable, every truth of a transcendent order
necessarily partaking of the inexpressible; and it is essentially in this
fact that the profound significance of the initiatic secret really lies,
for no kind of exterior secret can ever have any value except as an
image or symbol of the initiatic secret, though it may occasionally
also be not unprofitable as a ‘discipline’. But it must be understood
that these are things of which the meaning and the range are com-
pletely lost to the modern mentality, and incomprehension of them
quite naturally engenders hostility; besides, the ordinary man
always has an instinctive fear of what he does not understand, and
fear engenders hatred only too easily, even when a mere direct
denial of the uncomprehended truth is adopted as a means of
escape from fear; indeed, some such denials are more like real
screams of rage, for instance those of the self-styled ‘free-thinkers’
with regard to everything connected with religion.

Thus the modern mentality is made up in such a way that it can-
not bear any secret or even any reserve; since it does not know the
reason for them, such things appear only as ‘privileges’ established
for somebody’s profit; neither can it bear any kind of superiority.
Anyone who undertook to explain that these so-called ‘privileges’
really have their foundation in the very nature of beings would be
wasting his time, for that is just what ‘egalitarianism’ so obstinately
denies. Not only does the modern mentality boast, without any
justification, of the suppression of all ‘mystery’ by its science and
philosophy— exclusively rational as it is, and brought ‘within the

THE HATRED OF SECRECY 8 7

reach of all’— but the horror of ‘mystery’ goes so far in all domains
as to extend also even into what is commonly called ‘ordinary life’.
Nonetheless, a world in which everything had become ‘public’
would have a character nothing short of monstrous. The notion is
still hypothetical, because we have not in spite of everything quite
reached that point yet, and perhaps it never will be fully attained
because it represents a ‘limit’; but it is beyond dispute that a result of
that kind is being aimed at on all sides, and in that connection it
may be observed that many who appear to be the adversaries of
democracy are really doing nothing that does not serve further to
emphasize its effects, if that be possible, simply because they are just
as much penetrated by the modern spirit as are those whom they
seek to oppose. In order to induce people to live as much as possible
‘in public’, it is not enough that they should be assembled in the
‘mass’ on every occasion and on any and every pretext, but they
must in addition be lodged, not only in ‘hives’ as was suggested ear-
lier, but literally in ‘glass hives’, and these must be arranged in such a
way that they can only take their meals ‘in common’. People who are
capable of submitting themselves to such an existence have really
fallen to a ‘infra-human’ level, to the level, say, of insects like bees or
ants; and in addition every device is brought into play for ‘organiz-
ing’ them so that they may become no more different among them-
selves than are the individuals of those same species of animals, and
perhaps even less so.

As it is not the purpose of this book to enter into the details of -*■
certain ‘anticipations’, which would be only too easy to formulate
and too quickly overtaken by events, this subject will now be left. It
must suffice to have indicated summarily both the state at which
things have now arrived and the tendency they must inevitably con-
tinue to follow, at least for a certain time yet. The hatred of secrecy
is basically nothing but one of the forms of the hatred for anything
that surpasses the level of the ‘average’, as well as for everything that
holds aloof from the uniformity which it is sought to impose on
everyone. Nevertheless, there is, within the modern world itself, a
secret that is better kept than any other: it is that of the formidable
enterprise of suggestion that has produced and that maintains the

88 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

existing mentality, that has constituted it and as it were ‘manufac-
tured’ it in such a way that it can only deny the existence and even
the possibility of any such enterprise; and this is doubtless the best
conceivable means, and a means of truly ‘diabolical’ cleverness, for
ensuring that the secret shall never be discovered.

13

THE POSTULATES
OF RATIONALISM

It has just been said that the moderns claim to exclude all
‘mystery’ from the world as they see it, in the name of a science and
a philosophy characterized as ‘rational’, and it might well be said in
addition that the more narrowly limited a conception becomes the
more it is looked upon as strictly ‘rational’; moreover it is well
enough known that, since the time of encyclopaedists of the eigh-
teenth century, the most fanatical deniers of all supra-sensible real-
ity have been particularly fond of invoking ‘reason’ on all occasions,
and of proclaiming themselves to be ‘rationalists’. Whatever differ-
ence there may be between this popular ‘rationalism’ and a real
philosophic ‘rationalism’, it is at any rate only a difference of degree,
both the one and the other corresponding fully to the same tenden-
cies, which have become more and more exaggerated and at the
same time more ‘popular’ throughout the course of modern times.
‘Rationalism’ has so frequently been spoken of in the author’s ear-
lier works, and its main characteristics have been so fully defined,
that it might well suffice to refer the reader to those works ; 1 never-
theless, it is so closely bound up with the very conception of a quan-
titative science that a few more words here and now cannot well be
dispensed with.

Let it be recalled, then, that rationalism properly so called goes
back to the time of Descartes, and it is worthy of note that it can
thus be seen to be directly associated right from its beginnings with
the idea of a ‘mechanistic’ physics; Protestantism had prepared the

1. In particular to East and West and to The Crisis of the Modern World.

90 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

way for this, by introducing into religion, together with ‘free
enquiry’, a sort of rationalism, although the word itself was not then
in existence, but was only invented when the same tendency asserted
itself more explicitly in the domain of philosophy. Rationalism in all
its forms is essentially defined by a belief in the supremacy of rea-
son, proclaimed as a veritable ‘dogma’, and implying the denial of
everything that is of a supra-individual order, notably of pure intel-
lectual intuition, and this carries with it logically the exclusion of all
true metaphysical knowledge. This same denial has also as a conse-
quence, in another field, the rejection of all spiritual authority,
which is necessarily derived from a ‘supra-human’ source; rational-
ism and individualism are thus so closely linked together that they
are usually confused, except in the case of certain recent philosophi-
cal theories which though not rationalistic are nonetheless exclu-
sively individualistic. It may be noted at this point how well ration-
alism fits in with the modern tendency to simplification: the latter
naturally always operates by the reduction of things to their most
inferior elements, and so asserts itself chiefly by the suppression of
the entire supra-individual domain, in anticipation of being able
later on to bring everything that is left, that is to say everything in
the individual order, down to the sensible or corporeal modality
alone, and finally that modality itself to a mere aggregation of quan-
titative determinations. It is easy to see how rigorously these steps
are linked together, so as to constitute as it were so many necessary
stages in a continuous ‘degradation’ of the conceptions that man
forms of himself and of the world.

There is yet another kind of simplification inherent in Cartesian
rationalism, and it is manifested in the first place by the reduction of
the whole nature of the spirit to ‘thought’ and that of the body to
‘extension’; this reduction of bodies to extension is, as pointed out
earlier, the very foundation of ‘mechanistic’ physics, and it can be
regarded as the starting-point of a fully quantitative science . 2 But

2. As for Descartes’ own conception of science, it should be noted that he claims
that it is possible to reach the stage of having ‘clear and distinct’ ideas about every-
thing, that is, ideas like those of mathematics} thus obtaining the sort of ‘evidence’
that can actually be obtained in mathematics alone.

THE POSTULATES OF RATIONALISM 91

this is not all: in relation to ‘thought’ another mischievous simplifi-
cation arises from the way in which Descartes actually conceives of
reason, which he also calls ‘good sense’ (and if one thinks of the
meaning currently assigned to that expression, it suggests some-
thing situated at a singularly mediocre level); he declares too that
reason is ‘the most widely shared thing in the world,’ which at once
suggests some sort of ‘egalitarian’ idea, besides being quite obviously
wrong; in all this he is only confusing completely reason ‘in act’ with
‘rationality’, insofar as the latter is in itself a character specific to the
human being as such . 3 Human nature is of course present in its
entirety in every individual, but it is manifested there in very diverse
ways, according to the inherent qualities belonging to each individ-
ual; in each the inherent qualities are united with the specific nature
so as to constitute the integrality of their essence; to think otherwise
would be to think that human individuals are all alike and scarcely
differ among themselves otherwise than solo numero. Yet from
thinking of that kind all those notions about the ‘unity of the
human spirit’ are directly derived: they are continually invoked to
explain all sorts of things, some of which in no way belong to the
‘psychological’ order, as for example the fact that the same tradi-
tional symbols are met with at all times and in all places. Apart from
the fact that these notions do not really concern the ‘spirit’ but sim-
ply the ‘mind’, the alleged unity must be false, for true unity cannot
belong to the individual domain, which alone is within the purview
of people who talk in this way, as it is also, and more generally, of
those who think it legitimate to speak of the ‘human spirit’, as if the
spirit could be modified by any specific character. In any case, the
community of nature of the individuals within the species can only

3. In the classical definition of the human being as a ‘reasonable animal’, ‘ratio-
nality’ represents the ‘specific difference’ by which man is distinguished from all
other species in the animal kingdom; it is not applicable outside that kingdom, or in
other words, is properly speaking only what the scholastics called a differentia ani-
tnalisr, ‘rationality’ cannot therefore be spoken of in relation to beings belonging to
Other states of existence, in particular to supra-individual states, those of the angels,
for example; and this is quite in agreement with the fact that reason is a faculty of
an exclusively individual order, and one that can in no way overstep the boundaries
of the human domain.

92 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

produce manifestations of a very generalized kind, and is quite
inadequate to account for concordances in matters that are, on the
contrary, of a very detailed precision; but how could these moderns
be brought to understand that the fundamental unity of all the tra-
ditions is explained solely by the fact that there is in them some-
thing ‘supra-human’? On the other hand, to return to things that
actually are purely human, Locke, the founder of modern psychol-
ogy, was evidently inspired by the Cartesian conception when he
thought fit to announce that, in order to know what the Greeks and
Romans thought in days gone by (for his horizon did not extend
beyond Western ‘classical’ antiquity) it is enough to find out what
Englishmen and Frenchmen are thinking today, for ‘man is every-
where and always the same.’ Nothing could possibly be more false,
yet the psychologists have never got beyond that point, for, while
they imagine that they are talking of man in general, the greater part
of what they say really only applies to the modern European; does it
not look as if they believe that the uniformity that is being imposed
gradually on all human individuals has already been realized? It is
true that, by reason of the efforts that are being made to that end,
differences are becoming fewer and fewer, and therefore that the
psychological hypothesis is less completely false today than it was in
the time of Locke (always on condition that any attempt to apply it,
as he did, to past times is carefully guarded against); but nonetheless
the limit can never be reached, as was explained earlier, and for as
long as the world endures there will always be irreducible differ-
ences. Finally, to crown all this, how can a true knowledge of human
nature possibly be gained by taking as typical of it an ‘ideal’ that in
all strictness can only be described as ‘infra-human’?

That much being established, it still remains to explain why
rationalism is linked to the idea of an exclusively quantitative sci-
ence, or more accurately, why the latter proceeds from the former;
and in this connection it must be recognized that there is a consid-
erable element of truth in the analysis which Bergson applies to
what he wrongly calls ‘intelligence’, though it is really only reason,
or more correctly a particular way of using reason based on the Car-
tesian conception, there being no doubt that all the forms of mod-
ern rationalism arose out of that conception. It may be remarked

THE POSTULATES OF RATIONALISM 93

incidentally that the contentions of philosophers are often much
more justifiable when they are arguing against other philosophers
than when they pass on to expound their own views, and as each
one generally sees fairly clearly the defects of the others, they more
or less destroy one another mutually. Thus it is that Bergson, if one
takes the trouble to rectify his mistakes in terminology, gives a good
demonstration of the faults of rationalism (which, so far from being
one with ‘intellectualism’, is on the contrary its negation) and of the
insufficiencies of reason, but he is no less wrong in his own turn
when, to fill the gap thus created, he probes the ‘infra-rational’
instead of lifting his gaze toward the ‘supra-rational’ (and this is
why his philosophy is just as individualistic and ignores the supra-
individual order just as completely as that of his rivals). And so,
when he reproaches reason, to which it is only necessary here to
restore its rightful name, for ‘artificially clipping reality,’ there is no
need to adopt his special notion of ‘reality’, even purely hypotheti-
cally and provisionally, in order fully to understand his meaning: he
is evidently thinking in terms of the reduction of all things to ele-
ments supposed to be homogenous or identical one with another,
which amounts to nothing but a reduction to the quantitative, for
elements of that kind can only be conceived from a quantitative
point of view; and the idea of ‘clipping’ itself suggests fairly clearly
the efforts that are made to introduce a discontinuity rightly
belonging only to pure or numerical quantity, or broadly speaking
to the tendency referred to earlier, namely, that of refusing to recog-
nize as ‘scientific’ anything that cannot be ‘put into figures ’. 4 In the
same way, when he says that reason is not at ease except when it
applies itself to something ‘solid’, wherein it finds its own true
domain, he seems to be aware of the inevitable tendency of reason,
when reduced to itself alone, to ‘materialize’ everything in the ordi-
nary sense of the word, that is, to consider in all things only their
grossest modalities, because quality is then at a minimum in rela-
tion to quantity; only he seems to be considering the end-point of

4. It can be said in this connection that of all the meanings that were comprised
in the Latin word ratio one alone has been retained, that of ‘calculation’, in the use
to which reason is now put in the realm of ‘science’.

94 the reign of quantity

this tendency rather than its starting-point, which renders him lia-
ble to the accusation of exaggeration, for there are evidently degrees
of ‘materialization. Nevertheless, if one looks at the existing state of
scientific conceptions (or rather, as will be seen later, at a state
already on the way to being past) it is quite certain that they repre-
sent as nearly as is possible the last or lowest degree of materializa-
tion, the degree in which ‘solidity’ understood in its material sense
has reached its maximum, and that in itself is a particularly charac-
teristic mark of the period at which we have arrived. There is evi-
dently no need to suppose that Bergson himself understood these
matters in as clear a light as is shed by the above ‘translation’ of his
language, indeed it seems very unlikely that he did, considering the
multiple confusions he is constantly perpetrating; but it is nonethe-
less true that these views were in fact suggested to him by his esti-
mation of what present-day science is, and on that account the
testimony of a man who is incontestably a representative of the
modern spirit cannot be regarded as negligible. As for what his own
theories amount to exactly, their significance will be found in
another part of this study, and all that can be said about them for
the moment is that they correspond to a different aspect and to
some extent to a different stage of the deviation which, taken as a
whole, itself constitutes the modern world.

To summarize the foregoing, this much can be said: rationalism,
being the denial of every principle superior to reason, brings with it
as a ‘practical’ consequence the exclusive use of reason, but of rea-
son blinded, so to speak, by the very fact that it has been isolated
from the pure and transcendent intellect, of which, normally and
legitimately, it can only reflect the light in the individual domain. As
soon as it has lost all effective communication with the supra-indi-
vidual intellect, reason cannot but tend more and more toward the
lowest level, toward the inferior pole of existence, plunging ever
more deeply into ‘materiality’; as this tendency grows, it gradually
loses hold of the very idea of truth, and arrives at the point of seek-
ing no goal other than that of making things as easy as possible for
its own limited comprehension, and in this it finds an immediate
satisfaction in the very fact thafits own downward tendency leads it

THE POSTULATES OF RATIONALISM 95

in the direction of the simplification and uniformization of all
things; it submits all the more readily and speedily to this tendency
because the results of this submission conform to its desires, and its
ever more rapid descent cannot fail to lead at last to what has been
called the ‘reign of quantity’.

14

MECHANISM

AND MATERIALISM

The earliest product of rationalism in the so-called ‘scien-
tific’ field was Cartesian mechanism; materialism was not due to
appear until later, for as explained elsewhere, the word and the
thing itself are not actually met with earlier than the eighteenth cen-
tury; besides, whatever may have been the intentions of Descartes
himself (and it is in fact possible, by pursuing to the end the logical
consequences of his ideas, to extract from them theories that are
mutually very contradictory), there is nonetheless a direct filiation
between mechanism and materialism. In this connection it is useful
to recall that, although the ancient atomistic conceptions such as
those of Democritus and especially of Epicurus can be qualified as
mechanistic, these two being the only ‘precursors’ from the ancient
world whom the moderns can with any justification claim as their
own in this field, their conceptions are often wrongly looked upon
as the earliest form of materialism: for materialism implies above all
the modern physicist’s notion of ‘matter’, and at that time this
notion was still a long way from having come to birth. The truth is
that materialism merely represents one of the two halves of Carte-
sian dualism, the half to which its author had applied the mechanis-
tic conception; it was sufficient thereafter to ignore or to deny the
remaining half, or what comes to the same thing, to claim to bring
the whole of reality into the first half, in order to arrive quite natu-
rally at materialism.

Leibnitz, in opposition to Descartes and his disciples, was very
successful in demonstrating the insufficiency of a mechanistic phys-
ics, which cannot, owing to its very nature, take account of anything

MECHANISM AND MATERIALISM 97

but the outward appearance of things and is incapable of affording
the smallest explanation of their true essence; thus mechanism can
be said to have a value that is purely ‘representative’ and in no way
explanatory; and is not the whole of modern science really in exactly
the same position? This is seen to be the case even when an example
as simple as that of movement is taken, though movement is ordi-
narily thought of as being more completely explicable than anything
else in purely mechanical terms; but any such explanation, says
Leibnitz, is only valid so long as movement is not regarded as
involving anything other than a change of situation. From this lim-
ited point of view it is a matter of indifference, when the relative
positions of two bodies change, whether the first is regarded as mov-
ing in relation to the second, or the second in relation to the first, for
there is a complete reciprocity between the two; but it is quite
another matter when the reason for the movement is taken into
account, for if the reason is found to be in one of the two bodies,
that one alone must be regarded as moving, while the other plays a
purely passive part in the change that has taken place; but any idea
of this kind completely eludes conceptions of a mechanistic or
quantitative order. Mechanism is limited to giving a simple descrip-
tion of movement, such as it is in its outward appearance, but is
powerless to grasp the reason for it and so to express its essential or
qualitative aspect, which alone can afford a real explanation. These
considerations apply with even greater force in the case of things
that may be more complex in character than movement, and where -
quality may be more predominant over quantity, and that is why a
science constituted mechanistically cannot actually be of any value
in terms of effective knowledge, even within the confines of the rela-
tive and limited domain that encloses it.

The conception which Descartes tried to apply to all the phenom-
ena of the corporeal world is however no less conspicuously insuffi-
cient, in that he reduced the whole nature of bodies to extension,
and in addition he considered extension only from a purely quanti-
tative point of view; and even at that time, just like the most recent
mechanists and the materialists, he made no difference in this con-
nection between so-called ‘inorganic’ bodies and living beings. Liv-
ing beings are specified, and not organized bodies only, because the

98 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

being itself is in effect reduced by him to the body alone, in accor-
dance with the all too famous Cartesian theory of ‘animal-
machines’, and this is really one of the most astonishing absurdities
ever engendered by the systematic spirit. Not until he comes to con-
sider human beings does Descartes feel obliged to point out in his
physics that what he has in view is only ‘man’s body’; but what is this
concession really worth, seeing that everything that takes place in
this body would, by hypothesis, be exactly the same if the ‘spirit’
were absent? And so, as an inescapable result of dualism, the human
being is as it were cut into two parts that do not become reunited
and cannot form a real composite whole, since they cannot enter
into mutual communication by any means, being supposed to be
absolutely heterogeneous, so much so that any effective action by
one on the other would be rendered impossible. To complete the
picture, an attempt was made to explain mechanically all the phe-
nomena that take place in animals, including those manifestations
that are most obviously psychic in character; it is reasonable to ask
why the same explanations should not apply to man, and whether it
may not be permissible to ignore the other side of dualism as con-
tributing nothing to the explanation of things. From this stage to
the stage of looking at that other side as a useless complication and
in practice treating it as non-existent, and thence to the point of
denying it purely and simply, is no long step, especially for men
whose attention is constantly turned toward the domain of percep-
tion, as is the case with modern Westerners: thus it is that Descartes’
mechanistic physics could not but pave the way for materialism.

The reduction to the quantitative had already taken place theo-
retically in Descartes’ time as far as everything that properly belongs
to the corporeal order was concerned, in the sense that the actual
constitution of Cartesian physics implied the possibility of such a
reduction; it remained to extend the same conception to cover the
whole of reality as it was then conceived, but reality had by that
time become restricted to the domain of individual existence alone,
in accordance with the postulates of rationalism. Taking dualism as
point of departure, the reduction in question could not fail to
appear as a reduction from ‘spirit’ to ‘matter’, taking the form of a
relegation into the latter category alone of everything that Descartes

MECHANISM AND MATERIALISM 99

had included in either, so as to be able to bring all things indiffer-
ently down to quantity. And so, after having previously relegated
the essential aspect of things to a position ‘above the clouds’ as it
were, this last step served to suppress it completely, so that thereaf-
ter nothing needed to be taken into account but the substantial
aspect of things, for ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’ respectively correspond to
these two aspects, though they only suggest a much diminished and
distorted picture of them. Descartes had brought half the world as
he conceived it into the quantitative domain, and it was doubtless in
his eyes the more important half, for in his secret thoughts, what-
ever may appear on the surface, he wanted above all to be a physi-
cist; materialism in its turn claimed to bring the whole world into
its own domain; there was then nothing more to do but to strive to
bring the reduction to quantity into effect by means of theories pro-
gressively better adapted to that end, and that was the task to which
modern science was destined to apply itself, even when it made no
open declaration of materialism.

Besides avowed and formal materialism, there is also what may
be called a factual materialism, the influence of which extends much
further afield, for many people who regard themselves as being by
no means materialists nonetheless behave as such in practice in all
circumstances. There is in fact a relationship between these two
materialisms rather like that referred to earlier between philosophi-
cal rationalism and popular rationalism, except that the merely fac-
tual materialist does not generally parade that quality and would
often protest if it were attributed to him, whereas the popular ratio-
nalist, even when he is philosophically the most ignorant of men, is
all the more anxious to proclaim himself a rationalist, while at the
same time he proudly adorns himself with the title of ‘free-thinker’,
all unconscious of irony, for all the time he is but the slave of all the
current prejudices of his period. However that may be, just as popu-
lar rationalism is a product of the diffusion of philosophic rational-
ism among the ‘public at large’, with all the inevitable consequences
of its being put ‘within the reach of all’, so materialism properly so
called is the starting-point of factual materialism, in the sense that
the former has made a diffusion of its characteristic state of mind
generally possible and has effectively contributed to its formation;

100 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

but it must not be forgotten that all these separate happenings can
always be fully explained by the development of the same tenden-
cies, the tendencies that constitute the very foundation of the mod-
ern spirit. It is obvious that a scientist, in the modern sense of the
word, even if he does not profess materialism, will be influenced by
it to the extent that all his special training is oriented in that direc-
tion; and even if, as sometimes happens, this scientist believes him-
self to be not without the ‘religious spirit’, he will find the means to
separate his religion from his scientific activity so completely that
his work will in no way be distinguishable from that of the most
overt materialist, and so he will play just as important a part as the
latter in the ‘progressive’ building up of a science as exclusively
quantitative and as grossly materialistic as it is possible to imagine.
In this sort of way does anti-traditional action succeed in using to
its own profit even those who ought to be its adversaries, and who
might be so if the deviation of the modern mentality had not so
shaped beings that they are full of contradictions yet incapable even
of becoming aware of the fact. Here again the tendency to unifor-
mity finds its realization, since in practice all men end by thinking
and acting in the same way, and the things in respect of which they
nevertheless still differ have no more than a minimum of influence,
and are not translated into any reality in the outer world. Thus, in
such a world, and with the rarest exceptions, a man who professes
himself a Christian does not fail to behave in practice as if there
were no reality whatever outside corporeal existence alone, and a
priest who does ‘a little science’ does not differ perceptibly from a
university materialist; when things have reached this stage, have
they much further to go before the lowest point of the ‘descent’ is
reached at last?

15

THE ILLUSION

OF ‘ordinary life’

The materialistic attitude, whether it be a question of ex-
plicit and formal materialism or of a simple ‘practical’ materialism,
necessarily imposes on the whole ‘psycho-physiological’ constitu-
tion of the human being a real and very important modification.
This is easily understood, and in fact it is only necessary to look
round in order to conclude that modern man has become quite
impermeable to any influences other than such as impinge on his
senses; not only have his faculties of comprehension become more
and more limited, but also the field of his perception has become
correspondingly restricted. The result is a sort of reinforcement of
the profane point of view, for this point of view was first born of a
defect of comprehension, and thus of a limitation, and this limita- T .
tion as it becomes accentuated and extends to all domains, itself
seems to justify the point of view, at least in the eyes of those who
are affected by it. Indeed, what reason can they have thereafter for
admitting the existence of something that they can neither perceive
nor conceive, that is to say of everything that could show them the
insufficiency and the falsity of the profane point of view itself?

Thus arises the idea of what is commonly called ‘ordinary life’ or
everyday life’; this is in fact understood to mean above all a life in
which nothing that is not purely human can intervene in any way,
owing to the elimination from it of any sacred, ritual, or symbolical
character (it matters little whether this character be thought of as
specifically religious or as conforming to some other traditional
modality, because the relevant point in all cases is the effective

102 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

action of ‘spiritual influences’), the very words ‘ordinary’ or ‘every-
day’ moreover implying that everything that surpasses conceptions
of that order is, even when it has not yet been expressly denied, at
least relegated to an ‘extra-ordinary’ domain, regarded as excep-
tional, strange, and unaccustomed. This is strictly speaking a rever-
sal of the normal order as represented by integrally traditional
civilizations, in which the profane point of view does not exist in
any way, and the reversal can only logically end in an ignorance or a
complete denial of the ‘supra-human’. Moreover some people go so
far as to make a similar use, with the same meaning, of the expres-
sion ‘real life’, and this usage has a profoundly and singularly ironi-
cal character, for the truth is that the thing so named is on the
contrary nothing but the worst of illusions; this does not mean that
everything it contains is actually devoid of all reality, although such
reality as it has, which is broadly speaking that of the sensible order,
is at the lowest level of all, there being below it only such things as
are definitely beneath the level of all manifested existence. It is how-
ever the way in which things are conceived that is so wholly false,
because it separates them from every superior principle, and so
denies them precisely that which makes all their reality; that is why,
in all strictness, no such thing as a profane domain really exists, but
only a profane point of view, which becomes more and more inva-
sive until in the end it comprehends human existence in its entirety.

This makes it understandable how, in the conception of ‘ordinary
life’, one stage succeeds another almost insensibly, degeneration
becoming progressively more marked all the time. At first it is
allowed that some things are not accessible to any traditional influ-
ence, then those things themselves come to be looked on as normal;
from that point it is all too easy to arrive at considering them as the
only ‘real’ things, which amounts to setting aside as ‘unreal’ all that
is ‘supra-human’; and later on, when the human domain comes to
be conceived in a more and more narrowly limited way, until it is
finally reduced to the corporeal modality alone, everything that
belongs to the supra-sensible order is set aside as unreal. It is
enough to notice how our contemporaries constantly make use of
the word ‘real’ as a synonym oT ‘sensible’ without even thinking
about it, in order at once to become aware that they have indeed

THE ILLUSION OF ‘ ORDINARY LIFE ’ 103

fully reached the final stage, and that this way of looking at things
has become so completely incorporated into their very nature as to
have become so to speak almost instinctive with them. Modern phi-
losophy, which is more than anything else merely a ‘systematized’
expression of the common mentality, subsequently reacts on the lat-
ter to a certain extent, and the two have pursued parallel courses;
that of philosophy began with the Cartesian eulogy of ‘good sense’
alluded to earlier, and which is very revealing in this connection, for
‘ordinary life’ surely is first and foremost the domain of this so-
called ‘good sense’, also called ‘common sense’, and is no less limited
than it and in the same way; next, through rationalism, which is
fundamentally only a more specially philosophical aspect of
‘humanism’, that is to say, of the reduction of everything to an
exclusively human point of view, materialism or positivism are
gradually attained: whether one chooses, as in materialism,
expressly to deny everything that is beyond the sensible world, or
whether one is content, as in positivism (which for that reason likes
also to call itself ‘agnosticism’, making an honourable title for itself
out of what is really only the avowal of an incurable ignorance), to
refuse to be concerned with anything of the kind and to declare it
‘inaccessible’ or ‘unknowable’, the result is exactly the same in either
case, and it is precisely the result of which a description has just
been given.

It may be repeated here that in most cases there is naturally in
question only something that can be called a ‘practical’ materialism
or positivism, not dependent on any philosophical theory, for
philosophical theory is now and always will be quite foreign to the
majority; but this makes matters all the more serious, not only
because the materialistic state of mind thereby obtains an incompa-
rably wider diffusion, but also because it is all the more irremediable
the less it is deliberate and clearly conscious, for when it becomes so
it has then really penetrated and as it were impregnated the whole
nature of the individual. This is sufficiently shown by what has
already been said about factual materialism and about the way in
which people who nevertheless fancy themselves ‘religious’ accom-
modate themselves thereto; the same example also shows that phi-
losophy properly so called has not the conclusive importance that

104 THE REIGN of quantity

some people would like to assign to it, or at least that its chief
importance is as ‘representative’ of a certain mentality rather than as
acting effectively and directly upon it: in any case, how could a par-
ticular philosophical conception meet with the smallest success if it
did not fit in with some of the predominant tendencies of the period
in which it is formulated? This does not mean that philosophers do
not play their part just like anyone else in the modern deviation, for
that would certainly be an overstatement; it only means that their
part is in fact more restricted than one would be tempted to suppose
at first sight, and is rather different from what it may seem to be out-
wardly. In quite a general way moreover whatever is most apparent
is always, in accordance with the laws which control all manifesta-
tion, a consequence rather than a cause, an end-point rather than a
starting-point , 1 and in any case it is no use searching in the apparent
for whatever may be the really effective agent in an order more pro-
found, whether the action in question be exercised in a normal and
legitimate direction, or in a directly contrary direction, as in the case
now under consideration.

Mechanism and materialism themselves have only been able to
acquire a widespread influence by extending from the philosophical
into the scientific domain: anything related to the latter, or anything
that gives the impression, rightly or wrongly, of being endowed
with a ‘scientific’ character, doubtless exercises, for various reasons,
much more influence than do philosophical theories on the com-
mon mentality, in which there is always at least an implicit belief in
the truth of science, for the hypothetical character of science passes
quite unperceived, whereas everything classed as ‘philosophy’ leaves
it more or less indifferent; the existence of practical and utilitarian
applications in the one case and their absence in the other is no
doubt not entirely unconnected with this. This recalls once more
the idea of ‘ordinary life’, in which an effective part is played by a

1. It could also legitimately be sakfto be a ‘fruit’ rather than a ‘seed’; the fact
that the fruit itself contains new seeds indicates that the consequence can in its turn
play the part of cause at another level, in conformity with the cyclical character of
manifestation; but for that to happen it must again pass in one way or another
from the ‘apparent’ to the ‘hidden’.

THE ILLUSION OF ‘ ORDINARY LIFE’ 105

fairly strong dose of pragmatism’; and that statement is of course
made quite independently of the fact that some of our contempo-
■ raries have tried to build up ‘pragmatism’ into a philosophical sys-
I tern: this only became possible by reason of the utilitarian twist that
I is inherent in the modern and profane mentality in general, and
7 because, at the present stage of intellectual decadence, the very
notion of truth has come to be completely lost to sight, so much so
7 that the notion of utility or of convenience has ended by replacing it
f. entirely. However that may be, as soon as it is agreed that ‘reality’
consists exclusively in what presents itself to the senses, it is quite
natural that the value attributed to any particular thing should to
some extent be measured by its capacity to produce effects in the
sensible order; it is evident moreover that ‘science’, considered in
the modern fashion as being essentially grouped with industry, if
not more or less completely one with it, must for that reason
occupy the first rank, science thus finding itself mingled as closely as
possible with ordinary life, in which it becomes one of the principal
factors; and in return, the hypotheses on which it claims to be
founded, however gratuitous and unjustified they may be, must
themselves benefit by this privileged situation in the eyes of the peo-
ple. It goes without saying that the practical applications really
depend in no way on the truth of the hypotheses, and it may be
wondered what would become of a science of this sort— seeing that
as knowledge in the true sense it is nothing— if it were divorced
from the applications to which it gives rise; but it is a fact that sci-
ence such as it is ‘succeeds’, and for the instinctively utilitarian spirit
of the modern public ‘results’ or ‘success’ become a sort of ‘criterion
of truth’, if indeed the word ‘truth’ can be used in this connection
and still retain some sort of meaning.

Besides, whatever point of view is being considered, whether
philosophical, scientific, or simply ‘practical’, it is evident that in the
end all such points of view only represent so many different aspects
of one and the same tendency, and also that this tendency, like all
those that have an equal right to be regarded as constituting the
modern spirit, can certainly not have developed spontaneously.
Advantage has already been taken of many other opportunities to
explain this last point, but since this is a matter that cannot be too

106 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

strongly insisted on, it will be necessary to return later on to a more
precise exposition of the place occupied by materialism in the broad
‘plan whereby the modern deviation is brought about. Clearly the
materialists themselves are more incapable than anyone else of
becoming aware of these things or even of conceiving them as possi-
ble, blinded as they are by their preconceived ideas, which close for
them every outlet from the narrow domain in which they are accus-
tomed to move; doubtless they would be as astonished to hear of
them as they would be to know that men have existed and still exist
for whom what they call ‘ordinary life’ would be quite the most
extraordinary thing imaginable, because it corresponds to nothing
that occurs at all in their existence. Nevertheless such is the case,
and furthermore, these are the men who must be regarded as truly
‘normal’, while the materialists, with all their boasted ‘good sense’
and all the ‘progress’ of which they proudly consider themselves to
be the most finished products and the most ‘advanced’ representa-
tives, are really only beings in whom certain faculties have become
atrophied to the extent of being completely abolished. It is inciden-
tally only under such conditions that the sensible world can appear
to them as a ‘closed system’, in the interior of which they feel them-
selves to be in perfect security: it remains to be shown how this illu-
sion can, in a certain sense and in a certain measure, be ‘realized’
through the existence of materialism itself; but it will also appear
later that this nevertheless represents as it were an eminently unsta-
ble state of equilibrium, and that the world has even now reached a
point where the security of ‘ordinary life’, on which the whole out-
ward organization of the modern world has rested up till now, runs
serious risks of being troubled by unanticipated ‘interferences’.

1 6

THE DEGENERATION
OF COINAGE

This exposition has now arrived at a point at which it may be
useful to branch off from the theme to some extent, at least appar-
ently, in order to give, perhaps rather summarily, a few indications
on a question that may seem to be related only to a very specialized
field. Nonetheless, it will afford a striking example of the results of
the conception of ‘ordinary life’ and at the same time an excellent
‘illustration’ of how that conception is bound up with the exclu-
sively quantitative point of view, so that, particularly in this last con-
nection, it is really very directly relevant to our main theme. The
question is that of money, and if the merely ‘economic’ point of view
as it is understood today is not departed from, it certainly seems that
money is something that appertains as completely as possible to the
‘reign of quantity’. This indeed is the reason why it plays so predom-
inant a part in modern society, as is only too obvious, a point on
which it would clearly be superfluous to insist; but the truth is that
the ‘economic’ point of view itself, and the exclusively quantitative
conception of money that is inherent in it, are but the products of a
degeneration which is on the whole fairly recent, and that money
possessed at its origin, and retained for a long time, quite a different
character and a truly qualitative value, remarkable as this may
appear to the majority of our contemporaries.

It may easily be observed, provided only that one has ‘eyes to see’,
that the ancient coins are literally covered with traditional symbols,
often chosen from among those that carry some particularly pro-
found meaning; thus for instance it has been observed that among
the Celts the symbols figured on the coins can only be explained if
they are related to the doctrinal knowledge that belonged to the

108 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

Druids alone, which implies a direct intervention of the Druids in
the monetary domain. There is not the least doubt that the truth in
this matter is the same for the other peoples of antiquity as for the
Celts, of course after taking account of the modalities peculiar to
their respective traditional organizations. This is fully in agreement
with the fact of the inexistence of the profane point of view in
strictly traditional civilizations: money itself, where it existed at all,
could not be the profane thing it came to be later; and if it had been
so, how could the intervention of a spiritual authority, which would
then obviously have no concern with money, be explained, and how
would it be possible to understand that many traditions speak of
coinage as of something really charged with a ‘spiritual influence’,
the action of which could not become effective except by means of
the symbols that constituted its normal ‘support’? It may be added
that right up to very recent times it was still possible to find a last
vestige of this notion in devices of a religious character, which cer-
tainly retained no real symbolical value, but were at least something
like a recollection of the traditional idea, more or less uncompre-
hended thenceforth; but after having been relegated in certain
countries to a place round the rim of coins, in the end these devices
disappeared completely; indeed there was no longer any reason for
them as soon as the coinage represented nothing more than a
‘material’ and quantitative token.

The control of money by the spiritual authority, in whatever
form it may have been exercised, is by no means exclusively con-
fined to antiquity, for without going outside the Western world,
there is much to indicate that it must have been perpetuated until
toward the end of the Middle Ages, that is, for as long as the West-
ern world had a traditional civilization. It is impossible to explain in
any other way the fact that certain sovereigns were accused at this
time of having ‘debased the coinage’; since their contemporaries
regarded this as a crime on their part, it must be concluded that the
sovereigns had not the free disposal of the standard of the coinage,
and that, in changing it on their'own initiative, they overstepped the
recognized rights of the temporal power . 1 If that were not the case,

1. See Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power, where the case of Philip the Fair
is specially referred to, and where it was suggested that there may be a fairly close
connection between the destruction of the Order of Templars and the alteration of

THE DEGENERATION OF COINAGE 109

such an accusation would have been quite without meaning; the
standard of the coinage would only then have had an importance
based on convention, and it would not have mattered, broadly
speaking, if it had been made of any sort of metal, or of various
sorts, or even been replaced by mere paper as it is for the most part
today, for this would have been no hindrance to the continuance of
exactly the same ‘material’ employment of it. An element of another
order must therefore have been involved, and it must have been of a
superior order, for unless that had been the case the alteration could
not have assumed a character so exceptionally serious as to end in
compromising the very stability of the royal power; but the royal
power by acting in this way usurped the prerogatives of the spiritual
authority, which is without any doubt the one authentic source of
all legitimacy. In this way the facts, which profane historians seem
scarcely to understand, conspire once more to indicate very clearly
that the question of money had in the Middle Ages as well as in
antiquity aspects quite unknown to the moderns.

What has happened in this case is but an example of a much
more general movement, affecting all activities in every department
of human existence; all have been gradually divested of any ‘sacred’
or traditional character, and thereby that existence itself in its
entirety has become completely profane and is now at last reduced
to the third-rate mediocrity of ‘ordinary life’ as it is found today. At
the same time, the example of money clearly shows that this
‘profanization’— if any such neologism be allowable— comes about
chiefly by the reduction of things to their quantitative aspect alone;
indeed, nobody is able any longer to conceive that money can repre-
sent anything other than a simple quantity; but, although the case
of money is particularly apt in this connection because it has been
as it were carried to the extreme of exaggeration, it is very far from
being the only case in which a reduction to the quantitative can be
seen as contributing to the confining of existence within the limited

the coinage, something easily understood if it is recognized as at least very plausible
that this Order then had the function, among others, of exercising spiritual control
this field; the matter need not be pursued further here, but it may be recalled
that the beginning of the modern deviation properly so called has been assigned
precisely to this moment.

lio THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

horizon of the profane point of view. This is sufficiently under-
standable after what has been said of the peculiarly quantitative
character of modern industry: by continuously surrounding man
with the products of that industry, and so to speak never letting him
see anything else (except, as in museums for example, in the guise
of mere ‘curiosities’ having no relation with the ‘real’ circumstances
of his life and consequently no effective influence on it), he is really
compelled to shut himself up inside the narrow circle of ‘ordinary
life’, as in a prison without escape. In a traditional civilization, on
the contrary, each object was at the same time as perfectly fitted as
possible to the use for which it was immediately destined and also
made so that it could at any moment, and owing to the very fact
that real use was being made of it (instead of its being treated more
or less as a dead thing as the moderns do with everything that they
consider to be a ‘work of art’), serve as a ‘support’ for meditation,
linking the individual with something other than the mere corpo-
real modality, thus helping everyone to elevate himself to a superior
state according to the measure of his capacities : 2 what an abyss
there is between these two conceptions of human existence!

The qualitative degeneration of all things is closely linked to that
of money, as is shown by the fact that nowadays the ‘worth’ of an
object is ordinarily ‘estimated’ only in terms of its price, considered
simply as a ‘figure’, a ‘sum’, or a numerical quantity of money; in
fact, with most of our contemporaries, every judgment brought to
bear on an object is nearly always based exclusively on what it costs.
The word ‘estimate’ has been emphasized because it has in itself a
double meaning, qualitative and quantitative; today the first mean-
ing has been lost to sight, or what amounts to the same thing,
means have been found to equate it to the second, and thus it comes
about that not only is the ‘worth’ of an object ‘estimated’ according
to its price, but the ‘worth’ of a man is ‘estimated’ according to his
wealth . 3 The same thing has naturally happened to the word ‘value’,

2. Numerous studies by A. K. Coomaraswamy may be consulted on this subject,
which he has developed profusely and ‘illustrated’ in all its aspects with all neces-
sary explanations.

3. The Americans have gone so far in this direction that they commonly say that
a man is ‘worth’ so much, intending to convey in that way the figure to which his

THE DEGENERATION OF COINAGE 111

and it may be noticed in passing that on this is based a curious
abuse of the word by certain recent philosophers, who have even
gone so far as to invent as a description of their theories the expres-
sion ‘philosophy of values’; underlying their thoughts is the idea
that everything, to whatever order it may belong, is capable of being
conceived quantitatively and expressed numerically; and ‘moralism’,
which is their other predominant preoccupation, thus comes to be
closely associated with the quantitative point of view . 4 These exam-
ples show too that there has been a real degeneration of language,
inevitably accompanying or following that of everything else;
indeed, in a world in which every attempt is made to reduce all
things to quantity it is evidently necessary to use a language that
itself evokes nothing but purely quantitative ideas.

To return more particularly to the question of money, one more
point remains to be dealt with, for a phenomenon has appeared in
this field which is well worthy of note, and it is this: since money lost
all guarantee of a superior order, it has seen its own actual quantita-
tive value, or what is called in the jargon of the economists its ‘pur-
chasing power’, becoming ceaselessly less and less, so that it can be
imagined that, when it arrives at a limit that is getting ever nearer, it
will have lost every justification for its existence, even all merely
‘practical’ or ‘material’ justification, and that it will disappear of
itself, so to speak, from human existence. It will be agreed that here
affairs turn back on themselves in a curious way, but the preceding
explanations will make the idea quite easy to understand: for since
pure quantity is by its nature beneath all existence, when the trend
toward it is pressed to its extreme limit, as in the case of money
(more striking than any other because the limit has nearly been
reached), the end can only be a real dissolution. The case of money
alone already shows clearly enough that, as was said above, the secu-
rity of ‘ordinary life’ is in reality a highly precarious thing, and it will
be shown later that it is precarious in many other respects as well;

fortune has risen; they say too, not that a man has succeeded in his affairs, but that
he ‘is a success’, and this is as much as to identify the individual completely with his
material gains.

4. This association, by the way, is not an entirely new thing, for it actually goes
back to the ‘moral arithmetic’ of Bentham, which dates from the end of the eigh-
teenth century.

112 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

but the positive conclusion that will emerge will be always the same,
namely, that the real goal of the tendency that is dragging men and
things toward pure quantity can only be the final dissolution of the
present world.

17

THE SOLIDIFICATION
OF THE WORLD

Let us now return to the explanation of how a world conform-
ing as far as is possible to the materialistic conception has been
effectively realized in the modern period. If this is to be understood,
it must be remembered above all that, as has been often pointed
out, the human order and the cosmic order are not in reality sepa-
rated, as they are nowadays all too readily imagined to be; they are
on the contrary closely bound together, in such a way that each con-
tinuously reacts on the other, so that there is always correspondence
between their respective states. This correspondence is essentially
implied in the whole doctrine of cycles; without it the traditional
data with which the said doctrine is concerned would be almost
entirely unintelligible; the relationship existing between certain
critical phases of human history and certain cataclysms that occur
according to a known astronomical periodicity affords perhaps the
most striking example, but it is obvious that this is only an extreme
case of correspondences of this kind, which in fact subsist continu-
ously, for there is never any break in the correspondence, though
this fact is no doubt less apparent when modifications are taking
place only gradually and so almost insensibly.

That being the case, it is quite natural that in the course of cycli-
cal development both the cosmic manifestation as a whole and also
human mentality, which is of course necessarily included therein,
together follow the same descending course, the nature of which has
already been specified as consisting in a gradual movement away
from the principle, and thus away from the primal spirituality
inherent in the essential pole of manifestation. This course can be

114 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

described in terms of current terminology (thus incidentally bring-
ing out clearly the correlation under consideration), as a sort of
progressive ‘materialization’ of the cosmic environment itself, and it
is only when this ‘materialization’ has reached a certain stage, by
now already very marked, that the materialistic conception can
appear in man as its correlative, together with the general attitude
that corresponds with it in practice and fits in, as explained, with
the picture of ‘ordinary life’; moreover, in the absence of this factual
‘materialization’ there would not be the least semblance of justifica-
tion for the corresponding theoretical conception, for the sur-
rounding reality would too obviously give the lie to it all the time.
The very idea of matter, as understood by the moderns, could cer-
tainly not come to birth except in such conditions; what that idea
expresses more or less confusedly is in any case no more than a
limit, unattainable while the descent of manifestation is still going
on, firstly, because matter is regarded as being in itself something
purely quantitative, and secondly because it is supposed to be ‘inert’,
and a world in which there was anything really ‘inert’ would for that
reason forthwith cease to exist; the idea of ‘matter’ is therefore as
illusory as it could possibly be, since it corresponds to no reality of
any kind, however lowly its position in the hierarchy of manifested
existence. In other words it could be said that ‘materialization’ exists
as a tendency, but that ‘materiality’, which would be the complete
fulfillment of that tendency, is an unrealizable condition. One con-
sequence of this, among others, is that the mechanical laws theoret-
ically formulated by modern science are never susceptible of an
exact and rigorous application to the conditions of experience,
wherein there always remain elements that are entirely beyond
their grasp, even in the phase in which the part played by such ele-
ments is in a sense reduced to a minimum. So it is always a case of
approximation, and during this phase, leaving out of account cases
that will in such times be exceptional, approximation may suffice
for immediate practical needs; but a very crude simplification is
nevertheless implied, and it deprives the mechanical laws not only
of all claim to ‘exactitude’, but even of all value as ‘science’ in the
true meaning of the word; it is moreover only through an approxi-
mation of the same kind that the sensible world can take on the

THE SOLIDIFICATION OF THE WORLD 11 5

appearance of a closed system’, either in the eyes of the physicists or
in the sequence of the events that constitute ‘ordinary life’.

Instead of speaking as heretofore of ‘materialization’, it would be
possible to use the word ‘solidification’ in a sense that is fundamen-
tally the same, and in a manner perhaps more precise and perhaps
even more ‘realistic’, for solid bodies, owing to their density and
their impenetrability, do in fact give the illusion of ‘materiality’
more strongly than does anything else. At the same time, this recalls
how Bergson, as pointed out earlier, speaks of the ‘solid’ as consti-
tuting in some way the true domain of reason, and in this he is evi-
dently referring, whether consciously or otherwise (and doubtless
not very consciously, for not only is he speaking generally and with-
out making any reservation, but he even thinks it right to speak of
‘intelligence’ in this connection, as he always does when what he is
talking about really appertains to reason alone), more particularly
to what he sees around him, namely the ‘scientific’ use to which rea-
son is put. Now the actual occurrence of ‘solidification’ is precisely
the true reason why modern science ‘succeeds’, certainly not in its
theories which remain as false as before, and in any case change all
the time, but in its practical applications. In other periods, when
‘solidification’ was not yet so marked, not only could man never
have dreamed of industry as we know it today, but any such indus-
try would actually have been completely impossible in its entirety,
as would the ‘ordinary life’ in which industry plays so great a part.
This, incidentally, is enough to cut short all the fancies of those so-
called ‘clairvoyants’ who, imagining the past on the model of the
present, attribute to certain ‘prehistoric’ civilizations of a very re-
mote date something quite similar to the contemporary ‘machine
civilization’; this is only one of the forms of error that gives rise to
the common saying that ‘history repeats itself’, and it implies a total
ignorance of what have been called the qualitative determinations
of time.

In order to reach the stage that has been described, man must
have lost the use of the faculties which in normal times allowed him
to pass beyond the bounds of the sensible world, the loss being due
to the existence of ‘materialization’ or ‘solidification’, naturally as
effective in him as in the rest of the cosmic manifestation of which

Il6 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

he is a part, and producing considerable modifications in his ‘psy-
cho-physiological’ constitution. For even if the sensible world is in a
very real sense surrounded by barriers that can be said to be thicker
than they were in its earlier states, it is nonetheless true that there
can never anywhere be an absolute separation between different
orders of existence; any such separation would have the effect of
cutting off from reality itself the domain thus isolated, so that in any
such event the existence of that domain, that of the sensible world
in this instance, would instantly vanish. It might however legiti-
mately be asked how so complete and so general an atrophy of cer-
tain faculties has actually come about. In order that it might take
place, man had first of all to be induced to turn all his attention
exclusively to sensible things; the work of deviation had necessarily
to begin in this way, that work which could be said to consist in the
‘manufacturing’ of the present world, and it clearly could not ‘suc-
ceed’ in its turn except precisely at this phase of the cycle, and by
using, in ‘diabolical’ mode, the existing conditions of the environ-
ment itself. So much for this matter, which need not be further
insisted on for the moment; nevertheless, the solemn silliness of
certain declamations dear to scientific (or rather ‘scientistic’) ‘popu-
larizes’ can scarcely be too much admired, when they are pleased to
assert on all occasions that modern science ceaselessly pushes back
the boundaries of the known world, which is in fact the exact oppo-
site of the truth: never have those boundaries been so close as they
are in the conceptions admitted by this profane self-styled science,
never have either the world or man been so shrunken, to the point
of their being reduced to mere corporeal entities, deprived, by
hypothesis, of the smallest possibility of communication with any
other order of reality!

There is also yet another aspect of the question, both reciprocal
and complementary to the aspect considered hitherto: man is not
restricted at any stage to the passive role of a mere spectator, who
must confine himself to forming an idea more or less true, or more
or less false, of what is happening'around him; on the contrary, he is
himself one of the factors that intervene actively in the modification
of the world he lives in; and it must be added that he is even a par-
ticularly important factor, by reason of the characteristically ‘cen-
tral’ position he occupies in that world. The mention of this human

THE SOLIDIFICATION OF THE WORLD UJ

intervention does not imply that the artificial modifications to
which industry subjects the terrestrial environment are alone in
view, and in any case they are too obvious to be worth spending
time on: they are certainly something to be taken into account, but
they are not everything, and the matter now particularly to be con-
sidered in relation to the point of view of the present discussion is
something quite different, and is not willed by man, at least
expressly or consciously, though it nonetheless actually covers a
much wider field than do any artificial modifications. The truth is
that the materialistic conception, once it has been formed and
spread abroad in one way or another, can only serve to further rein-
force the very ‘solidification of the world that in the first place made
it possible; and all the consequences directly or indirectly derived
from that conception, including the current notion of ‘ordinary life’,
tend only toward this same end, for the general reactions of the cos-
mic environment do actually change according to the attitude
adopted by man toward it. It can be said with truth that certain
aspects of reality conceal themselves from anyone who looks upon
reality from a profane and materialistic point of view, and they
become inaccessible to his observation: this is not a more or less
‘picturesque’ manner of speaking, as some people might be tempted
to think, but is the simple and direct statement of a fact, just as it is a
fact that animals flee spontaneously and instinctively from the pres-
ence of anyone who evinces a hostile attitude toward them. That is
why there are some things that can never be grasped by men of
learning who are materialists or positivists, and this naturally fur-
ther confirms their belief in the validity of their conceptions by
seeming to afford a sort of negative proof of them, whereas it is
really neither more nor less than a direct effect of the conceptions
themselves. It is of course by no means the case that the things that
elude the materialists have in any sense ceased to exist since the time
of> or because of, the birth of materialism and positivism, but they
do actually ‘cut themselves off from the domain that is within the
reach of profane learning, refraining from penetrating into it in any
Way that could allow their action or even their existence to be sus-
pected, very much as, in another order not unrelated to the order
under consideration, the repository of traditional knowledge veils
itself and shuts itself in ever more strictly before the invasion of the

1 1 8 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

modern spirit. This is in a sense the ‘counterpart’ of the limitation of
the faculties of the human being to those that are by their nature
related to the corporeal modality alone: because of that limitation
man becomes, as has been explained, incapable of getting out of the
sensible world; because of what has just been called its ‘counterpart’
he loses in addition all chance of becoming aware of a manifest
intervention of supra-sensible elements in the sensible world itself.
So for him that world has become to the greatest possible extent
completely ‘closed’, for it has become ever more ‘solid’ as it has
become more isolated from every other order of reality, even from
those orders that are nearest to it and simply constitute separate
modalities of one and the same individual domain. From the inside
of such a world it may appear that ‘ordinary life’ has only to roll on
henceforward without trouble or unforeseen accidents, just like the
movements of a well regulated ‘mechanism’; is not modern man,
having ‘mechanized’ the world around him doing his very best to
‘mechanize’ himself, in all the forms of activity that still remain
open to his narrowly limited nature?

Nevertheless, the ‘solidification’ of the world, to whatever length
it may actually be carried, can never be complete, and there are lim-
its beyond which it cannot go, since, as explained earlier, arrival at
its extreme end-point would be incompatible with any real exist-
ence, even of the lowest degree; and moreover, the further ‘solidifi-
cation’ goes the more precarious it becomes, for the lowest reality is
also the least stable; the ever-growing rapidity of the changes taking
place in the world today provides all too eloquent a testimony to the
truth of this. It cannot but be that ‘fissures’ should develop in this
imagined ‘closed system’, which has moreover, owing to its ‘mech-
anical’ character, something ‘artificial’ about it (this word of course
being used in a sense much broader than in its usual application to
industrial products alone) that is not such as to inspire confidence
in its duration; and there are already at this moment numerous
signs indicating most clearly that its unstable equilibrium is on the
point of being interrupted. So thie is this that what has been said
about the materialism and mechanism of the modern period could
almost in a certain sense be relegated to the past even now; this of
course does not mean that their practical consequences may not

THE SOLIDIFICATION OF THE WORLD U9

continue to develop for a certain time to come, nor that their infl-
uence on the general mentality will not persist for a more or less
considerable period, if only as a consequence of ‘popularization’ in
its various forms, including education in schools at all levels, where
there are always plenty of ‘survivals’ of that sort hanging on (this
point will be expanded shortly); but it is nonetheless true that at the
present moment the very notion of ‘matter’, so painfully worked out
through so many different theories, seems to be in course of fading
away; nevertheless, there is perhaps no reason to be unduly pleased
at the occurrence, because, as will become clearer later on, it can
only properly be taken to represent yet one more step toward final
dissolution.

i8

SCIENTIFIC
MYTHOLOGY AND
POPULARIZATION

Reference has already been made to ‘survivals’ left behind in
the common mentality by theories no longer believed in by the sci-
entists, whereby those theories are enabled to continue as before to
exercise their influence over the general outlook of mankind, and it
will be useful to give some further attention to the subject, for it is
one that can contribute toward the explanation of certain aspects of
the present period. In this connection it should first be recalled that
when profane science leaves the domain of a mere observation of
facts, and tries to get something out of the indefinite accumulation
of separate details that is its sole immediate result, it retains as one
of its chief characteristics the more or less laborious construction of
purely hypothetical theories. These theories can necessarily never be
more than hypothetical, since their starting-point is wholly empiri-
cal, for facts in themselves are always susceptible of diverse explana-
tions and so never have been and never will be able to guarantee the
truth of any theory, and as was said earlier, their greater or lesser
multiplicity has no bearing on the question; and besides, such
hypotheses are really not inspired by the results of experience to
nearly the same extent as by certain preconceived ideas and by some
of the predominant tendencies of the modern mentality. The ever-
growing rapidity with which such hypotheses are abandoned in
these days and replaced by others is well known, and these continual
changes are enough to make all too obvious the lack of solidity of
the hypotheses and the impossibility of recognizing in them any

SCIENTIFIC MYTHOLOGY AND POPULARIZATION 121

value so far as real knowledge is concerned; they are also assuming
more and more, in the eyes of their authors themselves, a conven-
tional character, and so a quality of unreality, and this again may be
noted as a symptom of the approach toward final dissolution.
Indeed the scientists, and particularly the physicists, can hardly be
completely deceived by constructions of this sort, the fragility of
which they know all too well, today more so than ever. Not only are
they quickly ‘worn-out’, but from their beginnings the very people
who build them up only believe in them to a certain doubtless
rather limited extent, and in a more or less ‘provisional’ way; very
often they even seem to regard them less as real attempts at explana-
tion than as mere ‘representations’ and as ‘manners of speaking’.
This indeed is really all they are, and we have seen that Leibnitz had
already shown that Cartesian mechanism could be nothing but a
‘representation’ of outward appearances, denuded of all genuinely
explanatory value. Under such conditions the least that can be said
is that the whole business is rather pointless, and a conception of
science that can lead to a labour of that kind is certainly a strange
one; but the danger of these illusory theories lies in the influence
they are liable to exercise on the ‘public at large’ by virtue of the fact
that they call themselves ‘scientific’, for the public takes them quite
seriously and blindly accepts them as ‘dogmas’, and that not merely
for as long as they last (that time often being not long enough for
them to have even come fully to the knowledge of the public) but
more especially when the scientists have already abandoned them,
and for a long time afterward as well. This happens because they
persist, as was pointed out earlier, in elementary teaching and in
works of ‘popularization’, in which they are always presented in a
‘simplified’ and resolutely assertive form, and not by any means as
mere hypotheses, though that is all they ever were for those who
elaborated them. The use of the word ‘dogma’ a moment ago was
deliberate, for it is a question of something that, in accordance with
the anti-traditional modern spirit, must oppose and be substituted
for religious dogmas; an example like that of the ‘evolutionary’ the-
ories, among others, can leave no doubt on that score; and it is even
more significant that most of the ‘popularizers’ have the habit of
sprinkling their writings with more or less violent declamations

122 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

against all traditional ideas, which shows only too clearly the part
they are charged with playing, albeit unconsciously in many cases,
in the intellectual subversion of our times.

Thus it comes about that there has grown up in the scientistic
‘mentality’— which is, for the largely utilitarian reasons already
indicated, more or less the mentality of a great majority of our
contemporaries— a real ‘mythology’: most certainly not in the orig-
inal and transcendent meaning applicable to the traditional ‘myths’,
but merely in the ‘pejorative’ meaning that the word has acquired in
current speech. Endless examples could be cited: one of the most
striking and most ‘immediate’, so to speak, being the ‘imagery’ of
atoms and the many particles of various kinds into which they have
lately become dissociated in the most recent physical theories (the
result of this of course being that they are no longer in any sense
atoms, which literally means ‘indivisibles’, though they go on being
called by that name in the face of all logic). ‘Imagery’ is the right
word, because it is no more than imagery in the minds of the physi-
cists; but the ‘public at large’ believes firmly that real ‘entities’ are in
question, such as could be seen and touched by anyone whose
senses were sufficiently developed or who had at his disposal suffi-
ciently powerful instruments of observation; is not that a ‘mythol-
ogy’ of a most ingenuous kind? This does not prevent the same
public from pouring scorn on the conceptions of the ancients at
every opportunity, though of course they do not understand a sin-
gle word about them; even admitting that there may have been
‘popular’ deformations at all times (‘popular’ being another word
that people are very fond of using wrongly and ineptly, doubtless
because of the growing importance accorded to the ‘masses’), it is
permissible to doubt whether those deformations have ever been so
grossly materialistic and at the same time so widely diffused as they
are at present, thanks to the tendencies inherent in the mentality of
today and at the same time to the much vaunted spread of a ‘com-
pulsory education’ at once profane and rudimentary!

Too much time must not be spent on this subject, for it would
lend itself to an almost indefinite development, since it leads too far
afield from the main point at issue; it would for instance be easy to
show that, by reason of the ‘survival’ of hypotheses, elements that

SCIENTIFIC MYTHOLOGY AND POPULARIZATION 123

really belong to different theories get superimposed and intermin-
gled in such a way in popular notions that they sometimes form the
most incongruous combinations; and in any case the contemporary
^mentality is made up in such a way that it readily accepts the strang-
I est contradictions. But it will be more profitable to stress again a
Iparticular aspect of this subject, though admittedly this will involve
some anticipation of considerations that will find their place later
! on, for it concerns things more properly belonging to a phase other
than that which has been in view up till now, though these phases
cannot be kept quite separate, for that would give much too ‘sche-
matic’ an impression of our period. At the same time a glimpse can
be given of the way in which the tendencies toward ‘solidification’
and toward dissolution, while they are apparently opposed in some
respects, are nevertheless associated from the very fact that they act
simultaneously in such a way as to come to an inevitable end in the
final catastrophe. The aspect of affairs to which attention will now
be directed is the quite particularly extravagant character assumed
by the notions in question when they are carried over into a domain
other than that to which they were originally intended to be applied;
from such misapplications are derived most of the phantasmagoria
of what has been called ‘neo-spiritualism’ in its various forms, and it
is just such borrowings from conceptions belonging essentially to
the sensible order which explain the sort of ‘materialization’ of the
supra-sensible that is one of its most common characteristics . 1
Without seeking for the moment to determine more precisely the
nature and quality of the supra-sensible, insofar as it is actually
involved in this matter, it will be useful to observe how far the very
people who still admit it and think that they are aware of its action
are in reality permeated by materialistic influence: for even if they
do not deny all extra-corporeal reality, like the majority of their con-
temporaries, it is only because they have formed for themselves an
idea of it that enables them in some way to assimilate it to the like-
ness of sensible things, and to do that is certainly scarcely better than
to deny it. There is no reason to be surprised at this, considering the

1. This sort of thing is particularly apparent in spiritualism, and in the crudest
possible forms; a number of examples were given in The Spiritist Fallacy.

124 the reign of quantity

extent to which all the occultist, Theosophist, and other schools of
that sort are fond of searching assiduously for points of approach to
modern scientific theories, from which indeed they draw their
inspiration more directly than they are prepared to admit, and the
result is what might logically be expected under such conditions. It
may even be observed that, in accordance with the continuous
changes in scientific theories, the resemblance between the concep-
tions of a particular school and a particular scientific theory may
make it possible to ‘date’ the school, in default of any more precise
information about its history and its origins.

This state of affairs had its beginning at the time when the study
and the control of certain psychic influences descended, if it may be
so expressed, into the profane domain, and this in a certain sense
marks the beginning of the phase of ‘dissolution properly so called
in the modern deviation. This time can broadly speaking be placed
as far back as the eighteenth century, so that it is seen to be exactly
contemporary with materialism itself, showing clearly that these
two things, contraries in appearance only, had in fact to appear
together; it does not seem that anything of the kind was in evidence
at any earlier date, no doubt because the deviation had not then
attained the stage of development that could make such a thing pos-
sible. The chief characteristic of the scientific ‘mythology’ of that
period was the conception of ‘fluids’ of different kinds, all physical
forces being imagined to exist in some such form; it is precisely this
conception that was carried over from the corporeal order into the
subtle order in the theory of ‘animal magnetism’. If this is related
back to the idea of the ‘solidification’ of the world, it might perhaps
be thought that a ‘fluid’ is by definition the opposite of a ‘solid’; but
it is nonetheless true that in this case both play exactly the same
part, because the conception of ‘fluids’ has the effect of ‘embodying’
things that really belong to subtle manifestation. The magnetizers
were in a sense the direct precursors of ‘neo-spiritualism’, if indeed
they were not really its first representatives; their theories and their
practices influenced to a greater' or lesser extent all the schools that
came into being later, whether they were openly profane, like spiri-
tualism, or whether they had pseudo-initiatic pretensions, like the
many varieties of occultism. This persistent influence is all the more

SCIENTIFIC MYTHOLOGY AND POPULARIZATION 125

strange in that it seems quite disproportionate to the importance of
the psychic phenomena, very elementary as they were, which con-
stituted the field of experiment in magnetism; but perhaps even
more astonishing is the part played by this same magnetism, right
from the time of its first appearance, in turning aside from all seri-
ous work initiatic organizations that had still retained up to that
time, if not a very far-reaching effective knowledge, at least an
awareness of what they had lost in this respect and the will to do
their best to recover it. It is permissible to suppose that this is not
the least of the reasons for which magnetism was ‘launched’ at the
appointed time, even though, as almost always happens in similar
cases, its apparent promoters were acting only as more or less
unconscious instruments.

The ‘fluidic’ conception survived in the common mentality,
though not in the theories of physicists, at least up to about the mid-
dle of the nineteenth century (though expressions such as ‘electric
fluid’ continued to be used for even longer, but more in a mechani-
cal way and without a precise imagery any longer being attached to
them); spiritualism, which came to birth at that period, inherited
the conception all the more naturally through being predisposed to
it by an original connection with magnetism; and this connection is
much closer than might be at first supposed, for it is highly probable
that spiritualism could never have reached any very considerable
development but for the divagations of the somnambulists, and also
that it was the existence of magnetic ‘subjects’ which prepared for
and made possible the existence of spiritualist ‘mediums’. Even
today most magnetizers and spiritualists continue to talk of ‘fluids’,
and what is more, to believe seriously in them; this ‘anachronism’ is
all the more strange in that these people are in general fanatical par-
tisans of ‘progress’; such an attitude fits in badly with a conception
that has for a long time been excluded from the scientific domain
and so ought in their eyes to appear very ‘backward’. In the present-
day mythology, ‘fluids’ have been replaced by ‘waves’ and ‘radia-
tions’, these last in their turn of course effectively playing the part of
fluids’ in the theories most recently invented to try to explain the
action of certain subtle influences; it should suffice to mention ‘radi-
aesthesia’ which is as ‘typical’ as possible in this respect. Needless to

126 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

say, if it were only a question in all these affairs of mere images, of
comparisons based on some analogy (and not on identity) with
phenomena in the sensible order, the matter would not have very
serious consequences, and might even be justified up to a point; but
such is not the case, for the ‘radiaesthesists’ believe very literally that
the psychic influences with which they are concerned are ‘waves’ or
‘radiations’ propagated in space in the most ‘corporeal’ manner that
it is possible to imagine; moreover, thought itself does not escape
from representation in this fashion. Here we find another case of the
same ‘materialization’ continuing to assert itself in a new form, per-
haps more insidious than that of ‘fluids’ because it may appear to be
less crude; nonetheless the whole affair belongs fundamentally to
exactly the same order and does no more than express the very limi-
tations that are inherent in the modern mentality and consist in an
incapacity to conceive of anything whatsoever outside the domain
of the formation of mental images of sensible things . 2

It is scarcely necessary to add that the ‘clairvoyants’, according to
the schools to which they belong, go so far as to see ‘fluids’ or ‘radia-
tions’, just as there are some, particularly among the Theosophists,
who see atoms and electrons; here, as in many other matters, what
they in fact see are their own mental images, which naturally always
fit well with the particular theories they believe in. There are some
who see the ‘fourth dimension’, and even other supplementary
dimensions of space as well; and this leads to a few words in conclu-
sion on another case that also appertains to ‘scientific mythology’,
and might well be called the ‘delirium of the fourth dimension’. It
must be agreed that ‘hypergeometry’ seems to have been devised in
order to strike the imagination of people who have not enough
mathematical knowledge to be aware of the true character of an
algebraic construction expressed in geometrical terms, for that is
really what ‘hypergeometry’ is; and it may be noted in passing that
this is another example of the dangers of ‘popularization’. Moreover,

2. It is as a result of this same incapacity and of the confusion to which it gives
rise that Kant, in the philosophic field, did not hesitate to declare to be ‘inconceiv-
able’ everything that is merely ‘unimaginable’; moreover, speaking more generally, it
is the very same limitations that really gave birth to all the varieties of ‘agnosticism’.

SCIENTIFIC MYTHOLOGY AND POPULARIZATION 12 7

well before the physicists had thought of bringing the ‘fourth
dimension into their hypotheses (which had already become much
more mathematical than really physical, because their character had
become both increasingly quantitative and at the same time increas-
ingly ‘conventional’) the ‘psychists’ (they were not yet called ‘meta-
psychists’ in those days) were already making use of it to explain
phenomena in which one solid body appears to pass through
another; and here again it was not for them a case of a mere picture
‘illustrating’ in some way what may be called ‘interferences’ between
different domains or states, which would have been unobjection-
able, but, according to their ideas, the body in question had quite
genuinely passed through the ‘fourth dimension’. That was in any
case only a beginning, and in recent years, under the influence of the
new physics, occultist schools have been observed to go so far as to
build up the greater part of their theories on this same conception
of a ‘fourth dimension’; it may be noted also in this connection that
occultism and modern science tend more and more to join up with
one another as the ‘disintegration’ proceeds step by step, because
both are traveling toward it by their different paths. The ‘fourth
dimension’ will be spoken of again later from a different point of
view; but enough has been said about that sort of thing for the
present, and the time has come to turn to other considerations more
directly related to the question of the ‘solidification’ of the world.

19

THE LIMITS
OF HISTORY
AND GEOGRAPHY

It has already been indicated that, because of the qualita-
tive differences between different periods of time, for example
between the various phases of a cycle such as our own Manvantara
(it being obvious that outside the limits of the duration of the
present humanity conditions must be still more different), changes
come about in the cosmic environment generally, and more espe-
cially in the terrestrial environment that concerns us most directly;
and also that profane science, with its horizon bounded by the mod-
ern world in which alone it had its birth, can form no sort of idea of
these changes. The result is that, whatever epoch science may have
in view, it pictures to itself a world in which conditions are assumed
to be similar to those of today. We have seen that the psychologists
imagine in the same way that man has always in the past had a men-
tality similar to that of today; and what is true in this respect of the
psychologists is no less true of the historians, who assess the actions
of the men of antiquity or of the Middle Ages exactly as they would
assess those of their own contemporaries, attributing to each the
same motives and the same intentions. Thus, whether man or his
environment be in view, it is evident that those simplified and ‘uni-
formizing’ conceptions that correspond so well with present-day
tendencies are being brought into play: as for knowing how this
‘uniformization’ of the past can be reconciled with the ‘progressivist’
and evolutionist’ theories that are simultaneously adhered to by the

THE LIMITS OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY 129

same individuals, that is a problem the solution of which will cer-
tainly not be attempted here; it is no doubt only one more example
of the endless contradictions of the modern mentality.

In speaking of changes in the environment, the intention is not to
allude only to the more or less extensive cataclysms that in one way
or another mark the critical points’ of the cycle; these are abrupt
changes corresponding to real ruptures of equilibrium, and even in
cases where for example it is only a question of the disappearance of
a single continent (and such events have in fact occurred in the
course of the history of our present humanity), it is easy to see that
the terrestrial environment in its entirety must nevertheless be
affected by the repercussions of any such event, and that the ‘face of
the world’, so to speak, must thereby be markedly changed. But
there are in addition continuous and imperceptible modifications
which, within a period free from any cataclysm, produce bit by bit
results that in the end are scarcely less impressive; these are not of
course only simple ‘geological’ modifications as understood by pro-
fane science, and it is incidentally an error to consider the cata-
clysms from this narrow point of view alone, since it is always
restricted to whatever is most exterior; what is in view here is some-
thing much more profound, bearing on the conditions of the envi-
ronment themselves in such a way that, even if no account were
taken of geological phenomena as being no more than details of
secondary importance, beings and things would nonetheless be
really changed. As for the artificial modifications produced by
man’s intervention, they are after all only consequential, because, as
previously explained, nothing but the special conditions of this or
that period could make them possible; if man can indeed act on his
surroundings in some more profound way, it is rather psychically
than corporally that he can do so, as may be well enough under-
stood from what has been said about the effects of the materialistic
attitude.

The explanations given hitherto make it easy now to understand
the general direction in which such changes take place: this direc-
tion has been designated as that of the ‘solidification’ of the world,
conferring on all things an aspect corresponding ever more closely
(though never really corresponding exactly) to the way in which

130 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

things appear according to quantitative, mechanistic, or materialis-
tic conceptions; and this is why modern science succeeds in its prac-
tical applications, as indicated above, and also why the surrounding
reality does not seem to give the lie to it too strikingly. Such could
not have been the case in earlier periods, when the world was not so
‘solid’ as it has become today, and when the corporeal and subtle
modalities of the individual domain were not as completely sepa-
rated (although, as we shall see later, certain reservations must even
in the present state of affairs be made with respect to that separa-
tion). It was not only that man, whose faculties were then much less
narrowly limited, did not see the world with eyes that were the same
as those of today, and perceived many things which since then have
escaped him entirely; but also, and correlatively, the world itself, as a
cosmic entity, was indeed qualitatively different, because possibili-
ties of another order were reflected in the corporeal domain and in a
sense ‘transfigured’ it; thus, for example, when certain ‘legends’ say
that there was a time when precious stones were as common as the
most ordinary pebbles are now, the statement need not perhaps be
taken only in a purely symbolical sense. The symbolical sense is of
course always there in such a case, but this does not imply that it is
the only valid sense, for everything manifested is itself necessarily a
symbol in relation to some superior reality; it seems unnecessary to
insist on this point, which has been adequately explained elsewhere,
both in a general way, and as it concerns particular cases such as the
symbolic value of the facts of history and geography.

Before going any further, an objection that may arise in connec-
tion with the qualitative changes in the ‘face of the world’ must be
met. It may perhaps be argued that, if things were so, the vestiges of
bygone periods which are all the time being discovered ought to
provide evidence of the fact, whereas, leaving ‘geological’ epochs out
of consideration and keeping to matters that affect human history,
archaeologists and even ‘prehistorians’ never find anything of the
kind, however far their researches may be carried into the past. The
answer is really very simple: first bf all, these vestiges, in the state in
which they are found today and inasmuch as they are consequently
part of the existing environment, have inevitably participated, like
everything else, in the ‘solidification’ of the world; if they had not

THE LIMITS OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY 131

done so their existence would no longer be compatible with the pre-
vailing conditions and they would have completely disappeared,
and this no doubt is what has happened to many things which have
not left the smallest trace. Next, the archaeologists examine these
vestiges with modern eyes, which only perceive the coarsest modal-
ity of manifestation, so that even if, in spite of all, something more
subtle has remained attached to the vestiges, the archaeologists are
certainly quite incapable of becoming aware of it; in short, they treat
these things as the mechanical physicists treat the things they have
to deal with, because their mentality is the same and their faculties
are equally limited. It is said that when a treasure is sought for by a
person for whom, for one reason or another, it is not destined, the
gold and precious stones are changed for him into coal and com-
mon pebbles; modern lovers of excavations might well turn this
particular ‘legend’ to their profit!

However that may be, it is very sure that historians, simply
because they undertake all their researches from a modern and pro-
fane point of view, come up against certain ‘barriers’ in time that
prove more or less completely impassable; and, as was pointed out
elsewhere, the first of these ‘barriers’ is met with toward the sixth
century before the Christian era, at which point, according to mod-
ern conceptions, history properly so called begins; so that all things
considered antiquity as understood in this history is a very relative
antiquity indeed. It will no doubt be said that recent researches have
made it possible to go back much further, by bringing to light the
remains of a much more remote antiquity, and that is true up to a
point; it is nevertheless rather remarkable that in such cases there is
no longer any clearly established chronology, so much so that diver-
gences in the estimation of the dates of objects and of events
amount to centuries and sometimes even to whole millennia; and
in addition, it seems impossible to arrive at even a moderately pre-
cise conception of the civilizations of these more distant periods,
because terms of comparison with what exists today can no longer
be found, although they can be found when it is only a question of
‘classical’ antiquity. This, however, does not imply that ‘classical’
antiquity as represented to us by modern historians is not greatly
disfigured, the same being true of the Middle Ages though they are

132 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

even nearer to us in time. Moreover, the truth is that the most
ancient things so far made known to us by archaeological research
do not belong to a period more remote than about the beginning of
the Kali-Yuga , where naturally there is situated a second ‘barrier’;
and if some means could be found for crossing this one, there
would be yet a third, corresponding to the time of the last great ter-
restrial cataclysm, the cataclysm traditionally referred to as the dis-
appearance of Atlantis; it would evidently be quite useless to try to
go back further still, for before the historians had been able to reach
that point the modern world would have had plenty of time to dis-
appear in its turn!

These few indications are enough to make it clear how vain are all
the discussions to which the profane (the word is used here to
include all who are affected by the modern spirit) may wish to
devote their time on matters connected with the earlier periods of
the Manvantara , with the ‘golden age’ or the ‘primordial tradition’,
or even with much less remote events such as the biblical ‘deluge’,
taking this last only in its more immediately literal meaning, in
which it relates to the cataclysm of Atlantis; these matters are among
those that are wholly beyond their reach and will always be so. That
of course is why they deny them, as they deny indifferently every-
thing that goes beyond them in any way, for all their studies and all
their researches, being undertaken from a point of view both false
and restricted, can most certainly result in nothing but the denial of
everything that is not comprehended in that point of view. And on
top of all this, these people are so far persuaded of their own ‘superi-
ority’ that they are unable to admit the existence or even the possi-
bility of anything whatever that eludes their investigations; blind
men would surely have equally sound reasons for denying the exist-
ence of light and then using that as a pretext for boasting of their
superiority over normal men!

What has been said about the limits of history, as conceived
according to the profane conception, can also be applied to the lim-
its of geography, wherein there' are also many things that have
passed completely beyond the horizon of the moderns; anyone who
compares the descriptions of ancient geographers with those of
modern geographers must often be led to wonder whether it is

THE LIMITS OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY 133

really possible that both are speaking of the same countries. Never-
theless the ancient geographers are only ancient in a very relative
sense, and it is not necessary to go back further than the Middle
Ages in order to come across contrasts of that kind; in the interval
that separates them from us there has certainly been no notable cat-
aclysm; is it possible that the world has been able in spite of this to
change its appearance to such an extent and so quickly? It is of
course accepted that the moderns will say that the ancients did not
see clearly, or that they did not record clearly what they saw; but any
such explanation, which amounts to no more than supposing that
all men before our time were troubled with sensorial and mental
afflictions, really is a great deal too ‘simplistic’ and negative; and if
the question is examined with true impartiality, why should it not
be the moderns who do not see clearly, and who even fail to see
some things at all? They triumphantly proclaim that ‘the world has
now been discovered in its entirety,’ though this may perhaps not be
as true as they think, and they couple this with the supposition that
the greater part of the world was unknown to the ancients; in that
connection it may well be wondered what particular ancients they
are talking about, and whether they think that there were no men
before their own time other than the Westerners of the ‘classical’
period, and that the inhabited world did not then extend beyond a
small fraction of Europe and Asia Minor; and they say too that ‘this
unknown, because it was unknown, could not be otherwise than
mysterious’; but where have they found out that the ancients char-
acterized any of these things as ‘mysterious’, and is it not they them-
selves who proclaim them to be so because they no longer under-
stand them? Again, they say that in the beginning ‘marvels’ were
met with, and that later there were only ‘singularities’ or ‘curiosities’
and that finally ‘it was seen that these singularities conformed to
general laws, which men of learning sought to establish’; but is not
what they here describe with very fair accuracy precisely the succes-
sive stages of the limitation of human faculties, stages of which the
last corresponds to what may justly be called the mania for rational
explanations, with all the gross insufficiency that is theirs? In fact,
this last way of looking at things, from which proceeds modern
geography, really only dates from the seventeenth and eighteenth

134 the reign of quantity

centuries, that is, from the very period that saw the birth and diffu-
sion of the specifically rationalist mentality, and this confirms the
explanations given; from that time the faculties of conception and
perception that allowed man to reach out to something other than
the coarsest and most inferior mode of reality were totally atro-
phied, while the world itself was at the same time irremediably
‘solidified’.

If things are looked at in this way, the following conclusion
emerges: either, on the one hand, things could formerly be seen that
are no longer visible, because considerable changes have taken place
in the terrestrial environment or in human faculties, or rather in
both together, such changes moreover becoming more rapid as the
present period is approached; or, on the other hand, what is called
‘geography’ had in the old days a significance quite other than that
which it has today. Actually, the two terms of this alternative are not
mutually exclusive, and each of them expresses one side of the truth,
for the conception formed of a science naturally depends both on
the point of view from which its object is considered and on the
extent to which the realities implicit in it can be effectively grasped:
in relation to both these sides of the truth, a traditional science and
a profane science, even if they have identical names (and this gener-
ally indicates that the latter is as it were a ‘residue’ of the former) are
so profoundly different that they are in truth separated by an abyss.
Now there is really and truly a ‘sacred’ or traditional geography, as
completely unknown to the moderns as is all other knowledge of the
same kind; there is a geographical symbolism as well as a historical
symbolism, and it is the symbolical value of things that gives them
their profound significance, because through it is established their
correspondence with realities of a higher order; but it is not possible
for this correspondence to be effectively determined unless there is
the ability to perceive, in one way or another, the reflection of the
said realities in the things themselves. Thus it is that there are places
particularly suited to serve as ‘support’ for the action of ‘spiritual
influences’, and on this fact has always been based the establishment
of certain traditional ‘centers’, whether principal or secondary, the
oracles of antiquity and the places of pilgrimage furnishing the most
outwardly apparent examples of such ‘centers’. There are also other

THE LIMITS OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY 135

places no less specially favorable to the manifestation of ‘influences’
quite opposite in character, and belonging to the lowest regions of
the subtle domain; but what difference does it make to a modern
Westerner whether there be for instance in one place a ‘gate of
heaven’ and in another a ‘mouth of hell’, since the ‘density’ of his
‘psycho-physiological’ constitution is such that he experiences
nothing in particular in either the one or the other? Such things
therefore are literally non-existent for him, but this of course by no
means implies that they have actually ceased to exist; it is moreover
true that, communications between the corporeal and the subtle
domains having been more or less reduced to a minimum, in order
to become aware of such things, a greater development than in the
past of certain faculties is needed, and these are just the faculties
which, so far from being developed, have on the contrary for the
most part become continuously weaker and have ended by disap-
pearing from the ‘average’ human individual, so that the difficulty
and the rarity of perceptions of that order have been doubly accen-
tuated, and this is what allows the moderns to hold the accounts of
the ancients in derision.

In this connection, there is one more thing to be said, concerning
the descriptions of strange beings met with in such accounts: since
these descriptions naturally date at the earliest from ‘classical’ antiq-
uity, a time at which an undeniable degeneration had already taken
place from a traditional point of view, it is quite possible that confu-
sions of more than one kind may have crept in. For instance, one
part of these descriptions may really be derived from ‘survivals’ of a
symbolism no longer fully understood , 1 whereas another part may
be related to the appearances assumed by the manifestation of cer-
tain ‘entities’ or ‘influences’ belonging to the subtle domain, and yet
another, though doubtless not the most important, may really be a
description of beings that had a corporeal existence in more or less
remote times, but belonged to species since then extinct or having
survived only in exceptional conditions and as great rarities, such as

1. Pliny’s Natural History in particular seems to be an almost inexhaustible
source of examples of things of this kind; it is moreover a source on which all those
w ho came after him have drawn most abundantly.

136 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

are still sometimes met with today, whatever may be the opinion of
people who imagine that there is nothing left in the world that they
do not know about. It can be seen that in order to discern what lies
at the bottom of all this, a fairly long and difficult piece of work
would have to be undertaken, all the more so because the ‘sources’
available are far from providing uncontaminated traditional data; it
is obviously much simpler and more convenient to discard the
whole lot en bloc as the moderns do; they would anyhow not under-
stand the truly traditional data themselves any better than those
that are contaminated and would still see in them only indecipher-
able enigmas, and they will naturally adhere to this negative attitude
until some new changes in the ‘face of the world’ come to destroy
once and for all their deceptive security.

20

FROM SPHERE
TO CUBE

Now that a few ‘illustrations’ have been given of what has
been called the ‘solidification’ of the world, there remains the ques-
tion of its representation in geometrical symbolism, wherein it can
be figured as a gradual transition from sphere to cube. Indeed, to
begin with, the sphere is intrinsically the primordial form, because
it is the least ‘specified’ of all, similar to itself in every direction, in
such a way that in any rotatory movement about its center, all its
successive positions are strictly superimposable one on another . 1
The sphere, then, can be said to be the most universal form of all,
containing in a certain sense all other forms, which will emerge
from it by means of differentiations taking place in certain particu-
lar directions; and that is why the spherical form is, in all traditions,
that of the ‘Egg of the World’, in other words, the form of that which
represents the ‘global’ integrality, in their first and ‘embryonic’ state,
of all the possibilities that will be developed in the course of a cycle
of manifestation . 2 It is as well to note in addition that this first state,
so far as our world is concerned, belongs properly to the domain of
subtle manifestation, inasmuch as the latter necessarily precedes
gross manifestation and is its immediate principle. This is why the

1. See The Symbolism of the Cross, chaps. 6 and 20 .

2. This same form reappears at the beginning of the embryonic existence of
every individual comprised in that cyclical development, the individual embryo
{pinda ) being the microcosmic analogy of what the ‘Egg of the World’ ( Brah -
manda) is in the macrocosmic order.

138 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

form of the perfect sphere, or that of the circle corresponding to it
in plane geometry (as a section of the sphere by a given directional
plane) is in fact never realized in the corporeal world . 3

On the other hand, the cube is opposed to the sphere as being the
most ‘arrested’ form of all, if it can be so expressed; this means that
it corresponds to a maximum of ‘specification’. The cube is also the
form that is related to the earth as one of the elements, inasmuch as
the earth is the ‘terminating and final element’ of manifestation in
the corporeal state ; 4 and consequently it corresponds also to the
end of the cycle of manifestation, or to what has been called the
‘stopping-point’ of the cyclical movement. This form is thus in a
sense above all that of the ‘solid ’, 5 and it symbolizes ‘stability’ insofar
as this implies the stoppage of all movement; and it is evident that
the equilibrium of a cube resting on one of its faces is in fact more
stable than that of any other body. It is important to note that this
stability, coming at the end of the descending movement, is not and
cannot be anything but an unqualified immobility, of which the
nearest representation in the corporeal world is afforded by the
minerals; and this immobility, if it could be entirely realized, would
really be the inverted reflection at the lowest point of the principial
immutability of the highest point. Immobility or stability thus
understood, and represented by the cube, is therefore related to the
substantial pole of manifestation, just as immutability, in which all

3. The movement of the celestial bodies can be given as an example. It is not
exactly circular, but elliptical; the ellipse constitutes as it were a first ‘specification’
of the circle, by the splitting of the center into two poles or ‘foci’ in the direction of
one of the diameters, which thereafter plays a special ‘axial’ part, while at the same
time all the other diameters are differentiated one from another in respect of their
lengths. It may be added incidentally in this connection that, since the planets
describe ellipses of which the sun occupies one of the foci, the question arises as to
what the other focus corresponds to; as there is nothing corporeal actually there,
there must be something belonging only to the subtle order; but that question can-
not be further examined here, as it would be quite outside our subject.

4. See Fabre d’Olivet, The Hebraic Tongue Restored and The True Meaning of the
Hebrew Words Re-established and Proved by their Radical Analysis, (York Beach, ME:
Samuel Weiser, 1981).

5. The point is not that earth as an element is assimilated simply and solely to
the solid state, as some people wrongly think, but that it is rather the very principle
of solidity.

FROM SPHERE TO CUBE 139

possibilities are comprehended in the global’ state represented by
the sphere, is related to the essential pole ; 6 and this is why the cube
also symbolizes the idea of ‘base’ or ‘foundation’ which again corre-
sponds to the substantial pole . 7 Attention must also be drawn to the
fact that the faces of a cube can be considered as being oriented in
opposite pairs corresponding to the three dimensions of space, in
other words as parallel to the three planes determined by the axes
forming the system of coordinates to which that space is related and
which allows of its being ‘measured’, that is, of its being effectively
realized in its integrality. It has been explained elsewhere that the
three axes forming the three-dimensional cross must be looked
upon as being traced through the center of a sphere that fills the
whole of space by its indefinite expansion (the three planes deter-
mined by these axes also necessarily passing through the same cen-
ter, which is the ‘origin’ of the whole system of coordinates), and
this establishes the relation that exists between the two extreme
forms, sphere and cube, a relation in which what was interior and
central in the sphere is so to speak ‘turned inside out’ to become the
surface or the exteriority of the cube . 8

The cube also represents the earth in all the traditional meanings
of that word, that is, not only the earth as a corporeal element in the

6. This is why the spherical form is attributed in the Islamic tradition to the
‘Spirit’ ( ar-Ruh ) or to the primordial Light.

7. In the Hebrew Kabbalah the cubic form corresponds to Iesod, one of the
Sephiroth, and Iesod is in fact the ‘foundation’ (and if it be objected in this connec-
tion that Iesod is nevertheless not the last Sephirah , the answer must be that the
only one that follows it is Malkuth, which is actually the final ‘synthesization’ in
which all things are brought back to a state corresponding, at another level, to the
principial unity of Kether); in the subtle constitution of the human individuality,
according to the Hindu tradition, the same form is related to the ‘basic’ chakra or
fnuladhara ; and this is also connected with the mysteries of the Ka'bah in the
Islamic tradition; also, in architectural symbolism, the cube is properly the form of
the ‘first stone’ of a building, otherwise of the ‘foundation-stone’, laid at the lowest
level, to serve as support for the whole structure of the building, thus assuring its
stability.

8. In plane geometry a similar relation is obviously found when the sides of the
square are considered as being parallel to two rectangular diameters of the circle,
^d the symbolism of this relation is directly connected with what the Hermetic
tradition calls the ‘quadrature of the circle’, about which a few words will be said
later on.

140 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

sense in which it was mentioned above, but also as a principle of a
much more universal order, the principle designated in the Far-
Eastern tradition as Earth (77) in correlation with Heaven ( T’ien ).
Spherical or circular forms are related to Heaven, cubic or square
forms to Earth; since these two complementary terms are the equiv-
alents of Purusha and Prakriti in the Hindu doctrine, which means
that they are simply another expression for essence and substance
taken in their universal meaning, exactly the same conclusion as
before is arrived at in this instance. It is also evident that, like the
conceptions of essence and substance, the same symbolism is always
susceptible of application at different levels, that is to say either to
the principles of a particular state of existence, or to the integrality
of universal manifestation. Not only are these two geometrical
forms related to Heaven and to Earth, but so also are the instru-
ments used to draw them, namely, the compass and the square, and
this is so in the symbolism of the Far-Eastern tradition as well as in
that of Western initiatic traditions; 9 and the different correspon-
dences of these two forms give rise in different circumstances to
multiple symbolical and ritual applications. 10

Another case in which the relation of these same geometrical
forms is in evidence is that of the symbolism of the ‘Terrestrial Para-
dise’ and of the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’, to which reference has already
been made elsewhere; 11 and this case is specially important from the
point of view adopted in this book, since the symbolism in question
is in fact concerned with the two extremities of the present cycle.

9. In certain symbolical representations the compass and the square respec-
tively are placed in the hands of Fu Hsi and his sister Niu-koua, just as, in the
alchemical figures of Basil Valentine, they are placed in the hands of the two halves,
masculine and feminine, of the Rebis or Hermetic Androgyne; this shows that Fu
Hsi and Niu-koua are in a sense analogically assimilated, as regards their respective
functions, to the essential or masculine principle and to the substantial or feminine
principle of manifestation.

10. Thus, for example, the ritual garments of the ancient sovereigns in China
had to be round in shape at the top and square at the bottom; the sovereign then
represented the type of man himself {Jen) in his cosmic function, as the third term
of the ‘Great Triad’, exercising that function as intermediary between Heaven and
Earth, and uniting in himself the powers of both.

1 1. See The King of the World, also The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 9.

FROM SPHERE TO CUBE 141

Now the form of the ‘Terrestrial Paradise’, corresponding to the
beginning of the cycle, is circular, whereas that of the ‘Heavenly
Jerusalem’, corresponding to its end, is square ; 12 and the circular
boundary of the ‘Terrestrial Paradise’ is none other than the hori-
zontal section of the ‘Egg of the World’, that is of the universal and
primordial spherical form . 13 It could be said that this circle itself is
finally changed into a square, since the two extremities must join, or
rather (the cycle never being really closed, for that would imply an
impossible repetition) they must correspond exactly; the presence
of the same ‘Tree of Life’ in the center in each case shows clearly that
it is only actually a question of two states of one and the same thing,
the square here representing the accomplishment of the possibilities
of the cycle, which were in a germinal condition in the circular
‘organic girdle’ of the beginning, and are subsequently fixed and sta-
bilized in a state of definition so to speak, at least in relation to the
particular cycle concerned. This final result can also be represented
as a ‘crystallization’, again showing affinity with the cubic form (or
the square in the plane section): it becomes a ‘city’ with a mineral
symbolism, whereas at the beginning there was a ‘garden’ with a
vegetable symbolism, vegetation representing the elaboration of the
germs in the sphere of vital assimilation . 14 Reference was made
above to the immobility of minerals as being an image of the final
state toward which the ‘solidification’ of the world is tending: but it

12. If this is compared with the correspondences previously pointed out, it
might appear that there had been an inversion in the use of the two words ‘Heav-
enly’ and ‘Terrestrial’ and there is in fact a discrepancy, except in the following par-
ticular connection: at the beginning of the cycle, this world was not such as it is
now, and the ‘Terrestrial Paradise’ constituted the direct projection, at that time
visibly manifested, of the specifically celestial and principial form (it was besides
situated in a sense at the confines of heaven and earth, since it is said that it touched
the ‘sphere of the Moon’, that is, the ‘first heaven’); at the end of the cycle, the
Heavenly Jerusalem’ descends from heaven to earth, and it is only at the end of that
descent that it appears in the form of a square, because then the cyclic movement
has come to a stop.

13. It is worth noting that this circle is divided up by the cross formed by the
four rivers which rise at its center, thus giving exactly the figure alluded to when the
relation of the circle and the square was being dealt with.

14. See The Esoterism of Dante.

142 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

is as well to add that in considering the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ the
mineral has been regarded as already being in a ‘transformed’ or
‘sublimated’ state, for it figures as precious stones in the description
of that City; that is why the fixation is only final with respect to the
present cycle, and beyond the ‘stopping-point’ the same ‘Heavenly
Jerusalem’ must, by virtue of the causal linkage that admits of no
actual discontinuity, become the ‘Terrestrial Paradise’ of the future
cycle, the end of the one and the beginning of the other being actu-
ally one and the same moment viewed from two opposite sides . 15

It is nonetheless true that, if consideration is confined to the
present cycle, a moment finally arrives at which ‘the wheel stops
turning’, and here, as always, the symbolism is perfectly coherent:
for a wheel is circular in shape, and if it were to get out of shape in
such a way as to end by being square, it is obvious that it could not
do otherwise than stop. This is why the moment in question appears
as an ‘end of time’; it is then, according to the Hindu tradition, that
the ‘twelve suns’ will shine simultaneously, for time is in fact mea-
sured by the passage of the sun through the twelve signs of the
zodiac, making the annual cycle, and when the rotation is stopped,
the twelve corresponding aspects will so to speak be merged into
one, thus returning into the essential and primordial unity of their
common nature, since they do not differ except in their relation to
universal manifestation, which will then be at an end . 16 Moreover,
the changing of the circle into an equivalent square 17 is also what is
known as the ‘squaring of the circle’; those who declare that this is

15. This moment is also represented as that of the ‘reversal of the poles’ or as
the day when ‘the stars will rise in the West and set in the East’, for a rotational
movement appears to take place in two opposite directions according as it is
looked at from one side or the other, though it is really always the same continuous
movement, but seen from another point of view, corresponding to the course of a
new cycle.

16. See The King of the World. The twelve signs of the zodiac, instead of being
arranged in a circle, become the twelve gates of the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’, three
being placed on each side of the square, aqd the ‘twelve suns’ appear in the center of
the ‘city’ as the twelve fruits of the ‘Tree of Life’.

17. That is, a square of the same surface area, if a quantitative point of view is
adopted; but this is merely a wholly exteriorized expression of what is really in
question.

FROM SPHERE TO CUBE 143

an insoluble problem, though they be wholly unaware of its symbol-
ical significance, are thus right in fact, since the ‘squaring’ under-
stood in its true sense cannot be realized until the end of the cycle . 18

A consequence of all this is that the solidification of the world
appears to some extent to have a double meaning: considered in
itself and from within the cycle as being a consequence of a move-
ment leading down toward quantity and ‘materiality’, it evidently
has an ‘unfavorable’ significance, even a ‘sinister’ one, opposed to
spirituality; but, in another aspect, it is nonetheless necessary in
order to prepare, though it be in a manner that could be called ‘neg-
ative’, the ultimate fixation of the results of the cycle in the form of
the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’, where these results will at once become the
germs of the possibilities of the future cycle. Nevertheless, it goes
without saying that in the final fixation itself, and in order that it
may indeed become a restoration of the ‘primordial state’, the
immediate intervention of a transcendent principle is necessary,
otherwise nothing could be saved and the ‘cosmos’ would simply
evaporate into ‘chaos’. It is this intervention that produces the final
‘reversal’ already prefigured by the ‘transmutation’ of minerals in
the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’, and bringing about the reappearance of
the ‘Terrestrial Paradise’ in the visible world, where there will there-
after be ‘a new heaven and a new earth’, since it will be the beginning
of another Manvantara and of the existence of another humanity.

18. The corresponding numerical formula is that of the Pythagorean Tetraktys :
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10; if the numbers are taken in the reverse order: 4 + 3 + 2 + i, this
gives the proportions of the four Yugas, the sum of which is the denary, that is to
say the complete and finished cycle.

21

CAIN

AND ABEL

The ‘solidification’ of the world has yet other consequences
not mentioned hitherto in the human and social order, for it engen-
ders therein a state of affairs in which everything is counted,
recorded, and regulated, and this is really only another kind of
‘mechanization’; it is only too easy nowadays to find typical
instances anywhere, such as for example the mania for census-tak-
ing (which is of course directly connected with the importance
attributed to statistics), 1 and more generally, the endless multiplica-
tion of administrative interventions in all the circumstances of life.
These interventions must naturally have the effect of ensuring the
most complete uniformity possible between individuals, all the
more so because it is almost a ‘principle’ of all modern administra-
tion to treat individuals as mere numerical units all exactly alike,
that is, to act as if, by hypothesis, the ‘ideal’ of uniformity had
already been realized, thus constraining all men to adjust them-
selves, so to speak, to the same ‘average’ level. In another respect,

1. Much could be said about the prohibitions formulated in certain traditions
against the taking of censuses otherwise than in exceptional cases, if it were to be
stated that such operations, like all those of the ‘civil state’ as it is called, have
among other inconveniences that of contributing to the cutting down of the length
of human life (and this is anyhow in conformity with the progress of the cycle,
especially in its later periods), but the statement would simply not be believed; nev-
ertheless, in some countries the most ignorant peasants know very well, as a fact of
ordinary experience, that if animals are counted too often far more of them die
than if they are not counted; but in the eyes of moderns who call themselves
‘enlightened’ such things cannot be anything but ‘superstitions’.

CAIN AND ABEL 145

this ever more inordinate regulation has a highly paradoxical conse-
quence, and it is this: the growing rapidity and ease of communica-
tion between the most distant countries, thanks to the inventions of
modern industry, are matters of pride, yet at the same time every
possible obstacle is put in the way of the freedom of these commu-
nications, to the extent that it is often practically impossible to get
from one country to another, and in any case it has become much
more difficult now than it was when no mechanical means of trans-
port existed. This is another special aspect of ‘solidification’: in such
a world there is no longer any room for nomadic peoples such as
formerly survived in various circumstances, for these peoples grad-
ually come to a point at which they no longer find in front of them
any free space; and in addition to this, all possible means are used to
cause them to adopt a sedentary life , 2 so that in this connection also
the time seems not to be far distant when the ‘wheel will stop turn-
ing’; while in addition, within the sedentary life, the towns, repre-
senting something like the final degree of ‘fixation’, take on an
overwhelming importance and tend more and more to absorb
everything else ; 3 this is how it comes about that, toward the end of
the cycle, Cain really and finally slays Abel.

Cain is represented in Biblical symbolism as being primarily a
farmer and Abel as a stockmaster, thus they are the types of the two
sorts of peoples who have existed since the origins of the present
humanity, or at least since the earliest differentiation took place,
namely that between the sedentary peoples, devoted to the cultiva-
tion of the soil, and the nomads, devoted to the raising of flocks and
herds . 4 It must be emphasized that these two occupations are essen-
tial and primordial in the two human types; anything else is only

2. Two particularly significant examples may be cited here: the ‘Zionist’ projects
as they affect the Jews, and the attempts recently made to fix the Bohemians in cer-
tain countries of Eastern Europe.

3. It must be recalled in this connection that the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ itself is
symbolically a town, which shows that in this case also there is reason to take
account of a double meaning in ‘solidification’.

4. It may be added that, as Cain is said to be the elder, agriculture therefore
appears to have some kind of anteriority, indeed Adam himself is represented as hav-
mg had the function of ‘cultivating the garden’ in the period before the fall. This is

146 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

accidental, derived, or superadded, and to speak of people as hunt-
ers or fishers for example, as modern ethnologists so often do, is
either to mistake the accidental for the essential, or it is to restrict
attention to more or less late cases of anomaly or degeneration, such
as can be met with in certain savages (but the mainly commercial or
industrial peoples of the modern West are by no means less abnor-
mal, though in another way ). 5 Each of these two categories naturally
had its own traditional law, different from that of the other, and
adapted to its way of life and the nature of its occupations; this
difference was particularly apparent in the sacrificial rites, hence the
special mention made of the vegetable offerings of Cain and the ani-
mal offerings of Abel in the account given in Genesis . 6 As Biblical
symbolism in particular is now being considered, it is as well to note
at once in that connection that the Hebrew Torah belongs properly
to the type of law appropriate to nomadic peoples. Hence the way in
which the story of Cain and Abel is presented, for it would appear in
a different light in the eyes of a sedentary people and would be sus-
ceptible of a different interpretation, although the aspects corre-
sponding to the two points of view are of course both included in
the profound meaning of the story; this is nothing more than an

also related more particularly to the vegetable symbolism in the representation of
the beginning of the cycle (hence there was a symbolical and even an initiatic ‘agri-
culture’, the very same as that which Saturn was said by the Latins to have taught to
the men of the ‘Golden Age’); but however that may be, all we have to consider here
is the state of affairs symbolized by the opposition (which is at the same time a
complementarism) between Cain and Abel, arising when the distinction between
agricultural and pastoral peoples was already an established fact.

5. The names Iran and Turan have frequently been treated as if they were the
names of races, but they really represented the sedentary and the nomadic peoples
respectively; Iran or Air yam comes from the word ary a (whence dry a by exten-
sion), meaning ‘laborer’ (derived from the root ar, found again in the Latin arare,
arator and also arvum, ‘field’); and the use of the word arya as a title of honor (for
the superior castes) is consequently characteristic of the tradition of agricultural
peoples.

6. On the very special importance o( the sacrifice and of the rites connected
with it in the different traditional forms, see Frithjof Schuon, ‘On Sacrifice’, in The
Eye of the Heart (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom Books, 1997), and A.K. Cooma-
raswamy, ‘ Atmayajha : Self-Sacrifice’, in The Door in the Sky: Coomaraswamy on
Myth and Meaning (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), chap. 4.

CAIN AND ABEL H 7

application of the double meaning of symbols, to which some allu-
sion was made in connection with ‘solidification, since this ques-
tion, as will perhaps appear more clearly from what follows, is
closely bound up with the symbolism of the murder of Abel by
Cain. The special character of the Hebrew tradition is also responsi-
ble for the disapproval that is brought to bear on certain arts and
certain trades specially appropriate to sedentary peoples, notably on
everything connected with the construction of fixed dwellings; at
any rate that was the state of affairs until the time when Israel actu-
ally ceased, at least for several centuries, to be nomadic, that is, up to
the time of David and Solomon, and we know that it was even then
necessary to resort to foreign workers for the building of the Temple
in Jerusalem . 7

The agricultural peoples, just because they are sedentary, are nat-
urally those who arrive sooner or later at the building of towns;
indeed, it is said that the first town was founded by Cain himself;
moreover its foundation did not take place till well after the time
during which he is said to have been occupied in agriculture, which
shows clearly that there are as it were two successive phases in ‘sed-
entarism’, the second representing a relatively more pronounced
degree of fixity and spatial ‘constriction’ than the first. It could be
said in a general way that the works of sedentary peoples are works
of time: these peoples are fixed in space within a strictly limited
domain, and develop their activities in a temporal continuity that
appears to them to be indefinite. On the other hand, nomadic and
pastoral peoples build nothing durable, and do not work for a
future that escapes them; but they have space before them, not fac-
ing them with any limitation, but on the contrary always offering
them new possibilities. In this way is revealed the correspondence of
the cosmic principles to which, in another order, the symbolism of
Cain and Abel is related: the principle of compression, represented
by time, and the principle of expansion, represented by space . 8 In

7. The fixation of the Hebrew people was essentially dependent on the existence
of the Temple in Jerusalem; as soon as the Temple was destroyed nomadism reap-
peared in the special form of the ‘dispersion’.

8. Fabre d’Olivet’s works may be consulted on this cosmological interpretation.

148 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

actual fact, both these two principles are manifested simultaneously
in time and in space, as in everything else; it is necessary to point
this out in order to avoid unduly ‘simplified’ identifications or
assimilations, as well as to resolve occasional apparent oppositions;
but it is no less certain that the action of the principle of compres-
sion predominates in the temporal condition, and of expansion in
the spatial condition. Moreover, time uses up space, if it may be put
so; and correspondingly in the course of the ages the sedentary peo-
ples gradually absorb the nomads; this gives, as indicated above, a
social and historical significance to the murder of Abel by Cain.

Nomads direct their activities particularly to the animal king-
dom, mobile like themselves; sedentary peoples on the other hand
direct them in the first place to the two non-mobile kingdoms, the
vegetable and the mineral . 9 Furthermore, it is in the nature of things
that sedentary peoples should tend to the making of visual symbols,
images made up of various substances, and these images can always
be related back, in their essential significance, more or less directly
to the geometrical viewpoint, the origin and foundation of all spa-
tial conception. Nomads, on the other hand, to whom images are
forbidden, like everything else that might tend to attach them to
some definite place, make sonorous symbols, the only symbols
compatible with their state of continual migration . 10 It is, however,
remarkable that, among the sensible faculties, sight is directly
related to space, and hearing to time: the elements of the visual sym-
bol occur simultaneously, and those of the sonorous symbol in
succession; so that there is in this respect a kind of reversal of the

9. The use of the mineral elements includes more especially building and met-
allurgy; the latter will be further considered later; Biblical symbolism attributes its
origin to Tubalcain, that is, to a direct descendant of Cain, and Cain’s very name
reappears as a constituent in the formation of his descendant’s name, indicating
that there is a very close connection between the two.

10. The distinction between these two fundamental categories of symbols is, in
the Hindu tradition, that between th&yantra, a figured symbol, and the mantra, a
sonorous symbol; it naturally carries with it a corresponding distinction in the rites
in which these symbolical elements are respectively used, though there is not
always such a clear separation as can be conceived theoretically; in fact, every com-
bination of the two in different proportions is possible.

CAIN AND ABEL I49

relations previously considered: but this reversal is in fact necessary
so that some equilibrium may be established between the two con-
trary principles mentioned above, and so that their respective
actions may be kept within limits compatible with normal human
existence. Thus the sedentary peoples create the plastic arts (archi-
tecture, sculpture, painting), the arts consisting of forms developed
in space; the nomads create the phonetic arts (music, poetry), the
arts consisting of forms unfolded in time; for, let us say it again, all
art is in its origin essentially symbolical and ritual, and only through
a late degeneration, indeed a very recent degeneration, has it lost its
sacred character so as to become at last the purely profane ‘recre-
ation to which it has been reduced among our contemporaries . 11

Thus the complementarism of the conditions of existence is
manifested in the following way: those who work for time are stabi-
lized in space; those who wander in space are ceaselessly modified
within time. And the antinomy of the ‘inverse sense’ appears as fol-
lows: those who live according to time, the changing and destroying
element, fix and conserve themselves; those who live according to
space, the fixed and permanent element, disperse themselves and
change unceasingly. This must be so in order that the existence of
each may remain possible, for in this way at least a relative equilib-
rium is established between the terms representing the two contrary
tendencies; if only one or the other of the compressive and expan-
sive tendencies were in action the end would come soon, either by
‘crystallization’ or by ‘volatilization’, if it be allowable to use sym-
bolical expressions in this connection such as must recall the ‘coag-
ulation’ and ‘solution’ of the alchemists; moreover these expressions
do actually correspond to two phases in the present world of which
the exact significance will be explained later . 12 Here indeed we find

11. It is scarcely necessary to observe that, in all the considerations now under
examination, the correlative and in a way symmetrical character of the spatial and
the temporal conditions, seen under their qualitative aspect, becomes clearly
apparent.

12. This is why nomadism, in its ‘malefic’ and deviated aspect, easily comes to
exercise a ‘dissolving’ action on everything with which it comes into contact; seden-
tansm on its side, and under the same aspect, must inevitably lead only toward the
grossest forms of an aimless materialism.

150 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

ourselves in a domain where all the consequences of the cosmic
dualities show themselves with special clarity, those dualities being
more or less distant images or reflections of the primary duality,
that of essence and substance, of Heaven and Earth, or Purusha and
Prakriti , which generates and rules all manifestation.

To return to Biblical symbolism, the animal sacrifice is fatal to
Abel , 13 and the vegetable offering of Cain was not accepted ; 14 he
who is blessed dies, he who lives is accursed. Equilibrium is thus
broken on both sides; how can it be re-established except by
exchanges such that each has its part in the productions of the
other? Thus it is that movement brings together time and space,
being in a way a resultant of their combination, and reconciles in
them the two opposed tendencies just mentioned ; 15 movement
itself is moreover only a series of disequilibria, but the sum of these
constitutes a relative equilibrium compatible with the law of mani-
festation or of ‘becoming’, that is to say with contingent existence
itself. Every exchange between beings subject to spatial and tempo-
ral conditions is in effect a movement, or rather a combination of
two inverse and reciprocal movements, which harmonize and com-
pensate one another; in this case equilibrium is realized directly by

13. As Abel shed the blood of animals, his blood was shed by Cain; this is as it
were an expression of a ‘law of compensation’ by virtue of which the partial dise-
quilibria, in which the whole of manifestation consists fundamentally, are inte-
grated in the total equilibrium.

14. It is important to note that the Hebrew Bible nevertheless admits the valid-
ity of the bloodless sacrifice considered in itself: as in the case of the sacrifice of
Melchizedek, consisting in the essentially vegetable offering of bread and wine; but
this is really connected with the rite of the Vedic Soma and the direct perpetuation
of the Hebraic and ‘Abrahamic’ tradition and even much further back, to a period
before the laws of the sedentary and nomadic peoples were distinguished; this
again recalls the association of a vegetable symbolism with the ‘Terrestrial Paradise’,
that is, with the ‘primordial state’ of our humanity. The acceptance of the sacrifice
of Abel and the rejection of that of Cain are sometimes pictured in rather a curious
symbolical way: the smoke of the former rises vertically toward the sky, whereas the
smoke of the latter spreads horizon tally v over the surface of the earth; thus they
trace respectively the altitude and the base of a triangle representing the domain of
human manifestation.

15. These two tendencies are again manifested in movement itself, in the form
of centripetal and centrifugal movement respectively.

CAIN AND ABEL 151

virtue of the fact that this compensation exists . 16 The alternating
inovement of the exchanges may impinge on the three domains,
spiritual (or pure intellectual), psychic, and corporeal, correspond-
ing to the ‘three worlds’: the exchange of principles, of symbols, and
of offerings— such is the triple foundation, in the true traditional
history of terrestrial humanity, on which rests the mystery of pacts,
alliances, and benedictions, basically equivalent to the sharing out
of the ‘spiritual influences’ at work in our world; but these last con-
siderations cannot be dwelt on, for they obviously belong to a nor-
mal state of affairs from which we are now very far removed in all
respects, a state of which the modern world as such is in truth no
more than the simple and direct negation . 17

16. Equilibrium, harmony, and justice are really but three forms or aspects of
one and the same thing; they could even in a certain sense be brought respectively
into correspondence with the three domains shortly to be referred to, on condition
of course that justice be taken in its most immediate meaning, of which in the
modern world mere ‘honesty in commercial transactions represents an expression,
diminished and degraded by the reduction of all things to the profane point of view
and the narrow banality of ‘ordinary life’.

17. The intervention of the spiritual authority in the matter of money in tradi-
tional civilizations is directly connected with what has just been said: indeed
money itself is in a certain sense the very embodiment of exchange, hence a much
more exact idea can be formed of the real purpose of the symbols that it bore and
that therefore circulated with it, for they gave to exchange a significance quite other
than is contained in its mere ‘materiality’, though this last is all that it retains under
the profane conditions that govern the relations of peoples, no less than those of
individuals, in the modern world.

22

THE SIGNIFICANCE
OF METALLURGY

We have seen that the arts or crafts that involve a direc-
tion of activity toward the mineral kingdom belong properly to the
sedentary peoples, and that such activities were forbidden by the
traditional laws of the nomadic peoples, of which the Hebrew law is
the most generally known example; it is indeed evident that these
arts tend toward ‘solidification’, and in the corporeal world as we
know it ‘solidification’ in fact reaches its most pronounced form in
minerals as such. Moreover, minerals, in their commonest form,
that of stone, are principally used in the construction of stable
buildings ; 1 a town, considered as the collectivity of the buildings of
which it is made up, appears in particular as something like an arti-
ficial agglomeration of minerals; and it must be reiterated that life
in towns represents a more complete sedentarism than does agri-
cultural life, just as the mineral is more fixed and more ‘solid’ than
the vegetable. But there is something more: the arts applied to min-
erals include metallurgy in all its forms; now the evident fact that
metal tends increasingly in these days to be substituted for stone in
building, just as stone was formerly substituted for wood, leads to
a supposition that this change must be a symptom of a more
‘advanced’ phase in the downward movement of the cycle; and this
supposition is confirmed by the fact that in a general way metal

1. It is true that among many peoples the buildings of most ancient date were of
wood, but such buildings were obviously not so durable, and consequently not so
fixed, as stone buildings; the use of minerals in building thus always implies a
greater degree of ‘solidity’ in every sense of the word.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF METALLURGY 153

plays an ever-growing part in the ‘industrialized’ and ‘mechanized’
civilization of today, and that from a destructive point of view, if it
may be so expressed, no less than from a constructive point of view,
for the consumption of metal brought about by modern wars is
truly prodigious.

This observation moreover is in accord with a peculiarity met
with in the Hebrew tradition: from the beginning of the time when
the use of stone was allowed in special cases, such as in the building
of an altar, it was nevertheless specified that these stones must be
‘whole’, for ‘you shall lift up no iron tool upon them ’; 2 according to
the precise terms of this passage, insistence is directed not so much
to the stone being unworked as to no metal being used on it: the
prohibition of the use of metal was thus more especially strict in the
case of anything intended to be put to a specifically ritual use . 3
Traces of this prohibition still persisted even when Israel had ceased
to be nomadic and had built, or caused to be built, stable edifices:
when the Temple of Jerusalem was built the stone was ‘prepared at
the quarry; so that neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron was
heard in the temple, while it was being built .’ 4 There is nothing at all
exceptional in this, and a mass of concordant indications of the
same kind could be found: for instance, in many countries a sort of
partial exclusion from the community, or at least a ‘holding aloof’,
was practiced and even still is practiced so far as metal-workers are
concerned, and more particularly blacksmiths, whose craft is often
associated with the practice of an inferior and dangerous kind of
magic, which has eventually degenerated in most cases into mere
sorcery. Nevertheless, on the other side, metallurgy has been spe-
cially revered in some traditional forms, and has even served as the

2 . Deut. 27:5-6.

3 . Hence the continuing employment of stone knives for the rite of circumci-
sion as well.

4 . 1 Kings 6:7. Nevertheless the Temple of Jerusalem held a large quantity of
metallic objects, but their employment is connected with the other aspect of the
symbolism of metals, which is twofold, as we shall see presently: it seems moreover
that the prohibition ended by being to some extent ‘localized’, mainly against the
use of iron, and iron is the very metal of all others that plays the predominant part
in modern times.

154 the reign of quantity

basis of very important initiatic organizations; it must suffice to
quote in this connection the instance of the Kabiric Mysteries, with-
out dwelling longer at this point on a very complex subject that
would lead much too far afield; all that need be said for the moment
is that metallurgy has both a ‘sacred’ aspect and an ‘execrated’
aspect, and that in their origin these two aspects proceed from a
twofold symbolism inherent in the metals themselves.

If this is to be understood, it must be remembered in the first
place that the metals, by reason of their astral correspondences, are
in a certain sense the ‘planets of the lower world’; naturally therefore
they must have, like the planets themselves, of which they can be
said to receive and to condense the influences in the terrestrial envi-
ronment, a ‘benefic’ aspect and a ‘malefic’ aspect . 5 Furthermore,
since an inferior reflection is in question, corresponding to the
actual situation of the metallic mines in the interior of the earth, the
‘malefic’ aspect must readily become predominant; and it must not
be forgotten that from the traditional point of view metals and met-
allurgy are in direct relation with the ‘subterranean fire’, the idea of
which is associated in many respects with that of the ‘infernal
regions ’. 6 Nonetheless, if the metallic influences are taken in their
‘benefic’ aspect by making use of them in a manner truly ‘ritual’, in
the most complete sense of the word, they are susceptible of ‘trans-
mutation’ and ‘sublimation’, and are then all the more capable of
becoming a spiritual ‘support’, since whatever is at the lowest level
corresponds, by inverse analogy, to what is at the highest level; the

5. In the Zoroastrian tradition it seems that the planets were envisaged almost
exclusively as ‘malefic’; this may be the result of a point of view peculiar to that tra-
dition, but in any case all that is known about what still remains of Zoroastrianism
consists only of fragments so mutilated that it is not possible to form any exact
judgment on such questions.

6. As concerns the relationship to the ‘subterranean fire’, the obvious resem-
blance of the name of Vulcan to that of the Biblical name Tubalcain is particularly
significant: moreover they are both said to have been smiths; and while on the sub-
ject of smiths it may be added that the association of their craft with the ‘infernal
regions’ sufficiently explains what was said above about its ‘sinister’ aspect. The
Kabires, on the other hand, while they too were smiths, had a dual aspect both
celestial and terrestrial, bringing them into relationship both with the metals and
the corresponding planets.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF METALLURGY 155

whole mineral symbolism of alchemy is based on this very fact, and
so is the symbolism of the ancient Kabiric initiations . 7 On the other
hand, when nothing is in question but the profane utilization of
metals, in view of the fact that the profane point of view as such nec-
essarily brings with it the cutting off of all communication with
superior principles, nothing is then left that is capable of effective
action save the ‘malefic’ side of the metallic influences, and this will
develop all the more strongly because it will inevitably be isolated
from everything that could restrain it or counterbalance it; this par-
ticular instance of an exclusively profane utilization is clearly one
that is realized in all its fullness in the modern world . 8

The point of view adopted so far has been mainly concerned with
the ‘solidification’ of the world, having as its end-point nothing
other than the ‘reign of quantity’, of which the use of metals is only
an aspect, this being the point of view that has actually been most
obviously manifested in all fields up to the phase at which the world
has arrived today. But things can go further yet, and the metals, by
virtue of the subtle influences attached to them, can also play a part
in a later phase leading more directly to the final dissolution. Dur-
ing the course of the period that may be called ‘materialistic’, these
subtle influences have undoubtedly passed more or less into a latent
state, like everything else that is outside the limits of the purely cor-
poreal order; but this does not mean that they have ceased to exist,
nor even that they have entirely ceased to act, though in a hidden
manner, of which the ‘satanic’ side of ‘mechanistic’ theory and prac-
tice, especially (but not solely) in its destructive applications, is after
all but a manifestation, though naturally the materialists can have

7. It should be stated that alchemy properly so called did not go beyond the
‘intermediary world’ and held to a point of view that may be called ‘cosmological’,
but its symbolism was nonetheless capable of being transposed so as to give it a
truly spiritual and initiatic value.

8. The case of money, as it stands today, can also serve as a typical example:
deprived of everything that was able, in traditional civilizations, to make it as it
were a vehicle of ‘spiritual influences’, not only is it now reduced to being in itself
no more than a mere ‘material’ and quantitative emblem, but also it can no longer
play a part that is otherwise than truly nefarious and ‘satanic’, and it is all too easy
to see that such indeed is the part it plays in our time.

156 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

no suspicion of the fact. These same influences then need only wait
for a favorable opportunity to assert their activity more openly, of
course always in the same ‘malefic’ direction, because so far as
‘benefic’ influences are concerned the world has so to speak been
closed to them by the profane attitude of modernity: moreover
their opportunity may no longer be very far distant, for the instabil-
ity that nowadays continues to increase in every domain shows
clearly that the point corresponding to the greatest effective pre-
dominance of ‘solidity’ and ‘materiality’ has already been passed.

It may facilitate the understanding of what has just been said if it
is pointed out that, according to traditional symbolism, the metals
are in relation not only with the ‘subterranean fire’ as already indi-
cated, but also with the ‘hidden treasure’, all these matters being
rather closely interwoven, for reasons that cannot possibly be devel-
oped here, but that can go some way toward explaining how it is
that human interventions are capable of provoking, or more exactly
of ‘releasing’, certain natural cataclysms. However that may be, all
the ‘legends’ (using the language of today) about these ‘treasures’
show clearly that their ‘guardians’, who are none other than the sub-
tle influences attached to them, are psychic ‘entities’ that it is
extremely dangerous for anyone to approach who has not got the
required ‘qualifications’ and does not take the necessary precau-
tions; but what precautions could the moderns, completely ignorant
of such matters, in fact be expected to take in this matter? They are
all too obviously lacking in any ‘qualification’, as well as in any
means of action in the domain in question, for it eludes them in
consequence of the attitude they adopt toward anything and every-
thing. True enough, they constantly boast about ‘conquering the
forces of nature’, but they are certainly far from suspecting that
behind these same forces, which they look upon as being exclusively
corporeal, there is something of another order, of which the appar-
ent forces are really but the vehicles and as it were the outward like-
nesses; it is this other thing that might well one day revolt and finally
turn against those who have failed to recognize it.

It will be as well to add here incidentally a further note on some-
thing that may perhaps seem to be only a singularity or a curiosity,

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF METALLURGY 157

but will furnish the occasion for some further remarks later: the
‘guardians of the hidden treasure’, who are at the same time the
smiths working in the ‘subterranean fire’, are represented in the
different ‘legends’ sometimes as giants and sometimes as dwarfs.

‘ Something of the kind is also found in the case of the Kabires, and
: this shows that this category of symbolism is, like others, capable of
being applied so as to relate it to a superior order; but owing to the
conditions of our own period, it is necessary to adhere to a point of
view from which only what may be called its ‘infernal’ aspect can be
seen; in other words, the said conditions are no more than an
expression of influences belonging to the inferior and ‘tenebrous’
side of what may be called the ‘cosmic psychism’; and, as will appear
more clearly as this study proceeds, influences of this sort, in their
multitudinous forms, are today actively threatening the ‘solidity’ of
the world.

To complete this short summary, one more point related to the
‘malefic’ aspect of the influence of metals must be mentioned, and
that is the frequent prohibition of the carrying of metallic objects
while certain rites are being accomplished, both in the case of exo-
teric rites , 9 and in the case of initiatic rites properly so called . 10 The
character of all rules of this kind is no doubt principally symbolical,
and from that character they derive their profound significance; but
it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the truly traditional
symbolism (which must on no account be confused with the false

9. This prohibition is in force, at least in principle, notably in the Islamic rites
of pilgrimage, though in fact it is no longer strictly observed today; furthermore,
anyone who has accomplished these rites in their entirety, including that part of
them that constitutes their most ‘interior’ aspect, must thenceforth abstain from all
work involving the use of fire, and this includes more particularly the work of
blacksmiths and metallurgists.

10. In Western initiations this takes the form, in the ritual preparation of the
recipient, of what is designated as the ‘stripping of metals’. It could be said that in a

... case of this kind the metals, apart from their real power to affect adversely the
transmission of ‘spiritual influences’, are taken as representing more or less what
the Hebrew Kabbalah calls the ‘rinds’ or the ‘shells’ ( qlippoth ), meaning all that is
most inferior in the subtle domain, thus constituting, if the expression be allow-
able, the infra-corporeal ‘pit’ of our world.

158 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

interpretations and counterfeits to which the moderns sometimes
wrongly apply these words) 11 always has an effective meaning, and
that its ritual applications in particular have perfectly real effects,
although the narrowly limited faculties of modern man can rarely
perceive them. This is not a question of vaguely ‘idealistic’ notions,
but on the contrary concerns things of which the reality is some-
times manifested in a more or less ‘tangible’ way; if that were not
the case, what would be the explanation of the fact that there are
people who, when they are in a particular spiritual state, cannot
endure the least contact, even indirect, with metals, and that this is
so even if the contact has been brought about without their knowl-
edge and in conditions such that it is impossible that they should be
aware of it through their bodily senses, thereby necessarily exclud-
ing the psychological and over-simplified explanation of ‘auto-sug-
gestion’? 12 It can further be stated that a contact of this kind can in
comparable cases go so far as to produce outwardly the physiologi-
cal effects of a real burn, and it must be admitted that such facts
ought to provide material for reflection, if the moderns were still
capable of anything of the kind; but the profane and materialistic
attitude and the prejudices arising out of it have plunged them into
an incurable blindness.

11. Thus, those who in the first half of the nineteenth century wrote ‘histories
of religion’ invented something to which they applied the word ‘symbolical’, which
was a system of interpretation having only a very remote connection with true
symbolism; as for merely literary misuses of the word ‘symbolism’, they are evi-
dently not worth the trouble of mentioning.

12. The case of Shri Ramakrishna can be cited as a known example.

23

TIME CHANGED
INTO SPACE

In an earlier chapter it was stated that in a certain sense time
consumes space, and that it does so in consequence of the power of
contraction contained in it, which tends continuously to reduce the
spatial expansion to which it is opposed: but time, in its active
opposition to the antagonistic principle, unfolds itself with ever-
growing speed, for it is far from being homogenous, as people who
consider it solely from a quantitative point of view imagine, but on
the contrary it is ‘qualified’ at every moment in a different way by
the cyclical conditions of the manifestation to which it belongs. The
acceleration of time is becoming more apparent than ever in our
day, because it becomes exaggerated in the final periods of a cycle,
but it nevertheless actually goes on constantly from the beginning
of the cycle to the end: it can therefore be said not only that time
compresses space, but also that time is itself subject to a progressive
contraction, appearing in the proportionate shortening of the four
YugaSy with all that this implies, not excepting the corresponding
diminution in the length of human life. It is sometimes said, doubt-
less without any understanding of the real reason, that today men
live faster than in the past, and this is literally true; the haste with
which the moderns characteristically approach everything they do
being ultimately only a consequence of the confused impressions
they experience.

If carried to its extreme limit the contraction of time would in the
end reduce it to a single instant, and then duration would really
have ceased to exist, for it is evident that there can no longer be any

160 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

succession within the instant. Thus it is that ‘time the devourer ends
by devouring itself’, in such a way that, at the ‘end of the world’, that
is to say at the extreme limit of cyclical manifestation, ‘there will be
no more time’; this is also why it is said that ‘death is the last being
to die’, for wherever there is no succession of any kind death is no
longer possible . 1 As soon as succession has come to an end, or, in
symbolical terms, ‘the wheel has ceased to turn’, all that exists can-
not but be in perfect simultaneity; succession is thus as it were
transformed into simultaneity, and this can also be expressed by
saying that ‘time has been changed into space ’. 2 Thus a ‘reversal’
takes place at the last, to the disadvantage of time and to the advan-
tage of space: at the very moment when time seemed on the point of
finally devouring space, space in its turn absorbs time; and this, in
terms of the cosmological meaning of the Biblical symbolism, can
be said to be the final revenge of Abel on Cain.

There is a sort of ‘prefiguration’ of the absorption of time by
space, of which its authors are no doubt quite unconscious, in the
recent physico-mathematical theories that treat the ‘space-time’
complex as a single and indivisible whole, these theories inciden-
tally usually being interpreted inaccurately, when they are regarded
as treating time as if it were a ‘fourth dimension’ of space. It would
be more correct to say that time is treated as being comparable to a
‘fourth dimension’ only in the sense that in equations of movement
it plays the part of a fourth coordinate added to the three represent-
ing the three dimensions of space; and it is important to note that
this implies the geometrical representation of time in a rectilinear

1. Nevertheless, since Yama is designated in Hindu tradition as the ‘first death",
and is assimilated to ‘Death’ itself ( Mrtyu ), or, if the language of the Islamic tradi-
tion is preferred, to the ‘Angel of Death’, it will be seen that in this as in so many
other cases the ‘first’ and the ‘last’ meet and become more or less identified through
the correspondence between the two extremities of the cycle.

2. Wagner wrote in Parsifal: ‘Here, time is changed into space,’ the place
referred to being Montsalvat, which represents the ‘center of the world’ (this point
will be returned to shortly); there is however little likelihood that he really under-
stood the profound meaning of the words, for he scarcely seems to deserve the rep-
utation of being an ‘esoterist’ attributed to him by some people; everything really
esoteric found in his works properly belongs to the ‘legends’ used by him, the
meaning of which he all too often merely diminished.

TIME CHANGED INTO SPACE l6l

form, the insufficiency of which has previously been pointed out,
though it could not be otherwise in theories so purely quantitative
in character as those in question. But this last statement, while it
corrects up to a certain point the ‘popular’ explanation, is neverthe-
less still inexact. In reality, that which plays the part of a fourth
coordinate is not time, but something that the mathematicians call
‘imaginal time’; 3 and this expression, itself no more than a singular-
ity of language arising from the use of an entirely ‘conventional’
notation, here takes on a rather unexpected significance. Indeed, to
say that time must become ‘imaginal’ in order to become assimila-
ble to a fourth dimension of space, is really and truly as much as to
say that what must happen is that time should actually cease to exist
as such, or in other words that the transmutation of time into space
is in fact only realizable at the ‘end of the world’. 4

The conclusion may be drawn that it is quite useless to look for
anything that might be a ‘fourth dimension’ of space under the con-
ditions of the present world, and this has at least the advantage that
it cuts short all the ‘neo-spiritualist’ divagations briefly referred to
earlier; but is it necessary also to conclude that the absorption of
time by space must necessarily take the form of the addition of a
supplementary dimension to space, or is that too only a ‘figure of
speech’? All that it is possible to say about this is that when the
expansive tendency of space is no longer opposed and restrained by
the compressive tendency of time, then space must naturally, in one
way or another, undergo a dilatation such as will raise its indefinity
to a higher power; 5 but it should scarcely be necessary to add that
this occurrence cannot be represented by any image borrowed from
the corporeal domain. Indeed, since time is one of the determining
conditions of corporeal existence, it is evident that its suppression is

3. In other words, if the three coordinates of space are x, y, and z, the fourth
coordinate is not t, which designates time, but the expression t VT.

4. It is of interest to note that, although the ‘end of the world’ is commonly spo-
ken of as the ‘end of time’, it is never spoken of as the ‘end of space’; this observation
might seem insignificant to those who only see things superficially, nonetheless it is
actually very significant.

5. On the successive powers of the indefinite, see The Symbolism of the Cross,
chap. 12 .

162 the reign of quantity

by itself sufficient to cause everything to be taken right out of the
world; the being is then in what has been called elsewhere an extra-
corporeal ‘prolongation’ of the same individual state of existence as
that of which the corporeal world represents but a mere modality:
this also serves to indicate that the end of the corporeal world is by
no means the end of the said state of existence considered in its inte-
grality. Furthermore, the end of a cycle such as that of the present
humanity is really only the end of the corporeal world itself in quite
a relative sense, and only in relation to the possibilities that have
been included in the cycle and so have completed their development
in corporeal mode; but in reality the corporeal world is not annihi-
lated, but ‘transmuted’, and it immediately receives a new existence,
because, beyond the ‘stopping-point’ corresponding to the unique
instant at which time is no more, ‘the wheel begins to turn again for
the accomplishment of another cycle’.

Another important consequence arising from these consider-
ations is that the end of the cycle as well as its beginning is ‘intem-
poral’, and this is necessarily so because of the strict analogical
correspondence existing between the two extreme points; thus it
comes about that the end is in fact the restoration of the ‘primordial
state for the humanity of the cycle in question’, and this also makes
clear the symbolical relation of the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ to the ‘Ter-
restrial Paradise’. It is also a return to the ‘center of the world’, the
exterior manifestation of the center taking the forms, at either end
of the cycle, of the ‘Terrestrial Paradise’ and the ‘Heavenly Jerusa-
lem’ respectively, with the ‘axial’ tree growing in the middle of both
the one and the other. During the whole interval between the two,
that is, during the course of the cycle, the center is however hidden,
becoming indeed more and more so, because humanity has moved
gradually away from it, and this is fundamentally the real meaning
of the ‘fall’. The conception of a movement away from the center is
only another way of representing the descending course of the cycle,
for the center of a state such as ours, being the point of direct com-
munication with superior states, is at the same time the essential
pole of existence for that state; a movement from essence toward
substance is thus a movement from the center toward the circum-
ference, from the interior toward the exterior, and also, as is clearly

TIME CHANGED INTO SPACE 163

shown in this case by the geometrical representation, from unity
toward multiplicity . 6

The Pardes, inasmuch as it is the ‘center of the world’, is, accord-
ing to the primary meaning of its Sanskrit equivalent paradesha, the
‘supreme region’, but it is also, according to a secondary meaning of
the same word, the ‘distant region’, ever since it has become, in the
course of cyclical development, actually inaccessible to ordinary
humanity. It is in fact, at least apparently, the most distant of all
things, being situated at the ‘end of the world’ both in the spatial
sense (the summit of the mountain of the ‘Terrestrial Paradise’
touching the lunar sphere) and in the temporal sense (the ‘Heavenly
Jerusalem’ descending to the earth at the end of the cycle); neverthe-
less, it is always in reality the nearest of all things, since it has never
ceased to be at the center of all things , 7 and this brings out the inver-
sion of relationship between the ‘exterior’ and ‘interior’ points of
view. Only, in order that this proximity may be actually realized, the
temporal condition must necessarily be suppressed, because it is the
unfolding of time in conformity with the laws of manifestation that
has brought about the apparent separation from the center, and also
because time, according to the very definition of succession, cannot
turn back on its course; release from the temporal condition is
always possible for certain beings in particular, but as far as human-
ity (or more exactly a humanity) taken in its entirety is concerned, a
release from time obviously implies that the said humanity has
passed completely through the cycle of its corporeal manifestation:
only then can it, together with the whole of the terrestrial environ-
ment that depends on it and participates in the same cyclic move-
ment, be really reintegrated into the ‘primordial state’, or, what is
the same thing, into the ‘center of the world’. This center is where

6. Another significance of the ‘inversion of the poles’ can be deduced from this,
since the course of the manifested world toward its substantial pole ends at last in a
reversal’, which brings it back, by an instantaneous transmutation, to its essential
pole; and it may be added that, in view of this instantaneity, and contrary to certain
erroneous conceptions of the cyclical movement, there can be no ‘reascent’ of an
exterior order following the ‘descent’, the course of manifestation as such being
always descending from the beginning to the end.

7, This is the Regnum Dei intra vos est of the Gospel.

164 the reign of quantity

‘time is changed into space’, because it is where the direct reflection
in our state of existence of the principial eternity is found, and
thereby all succession is excluded: moreover death cannot attain
thereto, so that it is also the very ‘seat of immortality’; 8 all things
appear therein in perfect simultaneity in a changeless present,
through the power of the ‘third eye’ with which man has recovered
the ‘sense of eternity’. 9

8. On the ‘seat of immortality’ and what corresponds to it in the human being,
see The King of the World.

9. On the symbolism of the ‘third eye’, see Man and His Becoming according to
the Vedanta and The King of the World.

24

TOWARD

DISSOLUTION

Having given some attention to the end of the cycle, it is now
necessary as it were to turn back again, in order to examine more
fully the causes that can, under the conditions of the present period,
play an effective part in leading humanity and the world toward that
end. Two contributing tendencies may be distinguished, and their
description involves the use of terms suggesting an apparent anti-
nomy: on one side is the tendency toward what has been called the
‘solidification of the world, and it is this that has been mainly con-
sidered so far, and on the other side is the tendency toward the dis-
solution of the world, and it remains to examine in detail the action
of the latter, for it must not be forgotten that every such end neces-
sarily takes one form and one only, that of a dissolution of the man-
ifested as such. Let it be said at once that the second of the two
tendencies now seems to be beginning to predominate; for, in the
first place, materialism properly so called, corresponding as it
clearly does to ‘solidification’ in its grossest form (the word ‘petri-
faction’ could almost be used, by analogy with what minerals repre-
sent in this connection), has already lost much ground, at least in
the domain of scientific and philosophical theory, if not yet in that
of the common mentality; and this is so far true that, as pointed out
earlier, the very notion of ‘matter’ as it existed in these theories has
begun to fade away and to dissolve. In the second place, and correl-
atively to this change, the illusion of security that held sway at the
time when materialism had attained its greatest influence, and that
was then more or less inseparable from the prevailing idea of ‘ordi-
nary life’, has in the main been dissipated by the events that have

1 66 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

taken place and the speed of their succession, so much so that the
dominant impression today is very different, for it has become an
impression of instability extending to all domains. Since ‘solidity’
necessarily implies stability, this again shows clearly that the point
of greatest effective ‘solidity’ within the possibilities of our world has
not only been reached, but has also already been passed, and conse-
quently that dissolution is the goal toward which the world will be
traveling henceforth.

The acceleration of time itself, as it becomes ever more pro-
nounced and causes changes to be ever more rapid, seems to lead of
its own accord toward dissolution, but it cannot for that reason be
said that the general direction of events has been modified, for the
cyclical movement inevitably continues to follow the same descend-
ing course. Moreover, the physical theories just referred to, while
they too change with growing rapidity like everything else, continue
nonetheless to take on a more and more exclusively quantitative
character, to such a point that their character has now become
assimilated to that of purely mathematical theories, and this change,
as previously indicated, takes them yet further away from the sensi-
ble reality that they claim to explain, and leads them into a domain
that is necessarily situated on a lower plane than that of sensible
reality, as was explained earlier when pure quantity was under con-
sideration. In any case, the ‘solid’, even at its greatest conceivable
density and impenetrability, by no means corresponds to pure
quantity, having always at least a minimum of qualitative elements;
it is moreover corporeal by definition, and is even in a sense the
most corporeal thing possible; now ‘corporeality’ is by definition
such that space, however ‘compressed’ it may be under the condi-
tions appertaining to a ‘solid’, is necessarily inherent in its constitu-
tion, and space, let it be recalled again, can in no way be assimilated
to pure quantity. Even if the point of view of modern science were to
be adopted momentarily, so that on the one hand ‘corporeality’
could be reduced to extension in accordance with Descartes’ ideas,
and on the other hand space cduld be regarded as nothing but a
mere mode of quantity, the difficulty still remaining would be that
everything would be still be in the domain of continuous quantity;

TOWARD DISSOLUTION l 6 7

a change to the domain of discontinuous quantity, that is, of num-
ber, which alone can be looked upon as representing pure quantity,
must then obviously imply, by reason of the said discontinuity
alone, that neither the ‘solid’, nor anything else that is corporeal, can
subsequently be taken into account.

A point is therefore reached in the gradual reduction of every-
thing to the quantitative at which this reduction no longer leads
toward ‘solidification’, and at this point there arises a desire to
assimilate continuous quantity to discontinuous quantity. Bodies
can then no longer persist as such, but are dissolved into a sort of
‘atomic’ dust without cohesion; it would therefore be possible to
speak of a real ‘pulverization’ of the world, and such is evidently one
of the possible forms of cyclic dissolution . 1 Nevertheless, although
dissolution can be envisaged in this way from a certain point of
view, it also appears from another point of view, and in accordance
with a mode of expression made use of earlier, as a ‘volatilization’.
‘Pulverization’, however complete it may be imagined to be, always
leaves ‘residues’, even though they may be really impalpable; but as
against this, the end of the cycle, if it is to be fully accomplished,
implies that everything that is comprised in the cycle disappears
completely insofar as it was manifested; these two different concep-
tions however each represent a part of the truth. Indeed, the positive
results of cyclical manifestation are ‘crystallized’ in order that they
may then be ‘transmuted’ into the germs of the possibilities of the
future cycle, and this constitutes the end-point of ‘solidification’
under its ‘benefic’ aspect (implying essentially the ‘sublimation’ that
coincides with the final ‘reversal’), whereas whatever cannot be used
in this way, that is to say, broadly speaking, whatever constitutes the
purely negative results of the particular manifestation, is ‘precipi-
tated’ in the form of a caput mortuum in the alchemist’s sense of the
word, into the most inferior ‘prolongations’ of our state of existence,

1. Solvet saeclum in favilla are the exact words of the Catholic liturgy, which
incidentally calls upon both the testimony of David and that of the Sibyl in this
matter, and this in itself is one of the ways in which the unanimous agreement of
the different traditions is confirmed.

168 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

or into that part of the subtle domain that can properly be qualified
as ‘infra-corporeal’; 2 but in either case a passage has taken place into
extra-corporeal modalities, respectively superior and inferior, in
such a way that it can be said that corporeal manifestation itself, so
far as the particular cycle is concerned, has really disappeared com-
pletely or has been ‘volatilized’. It can be seen that it is always neces-
sary at all stages up to the very last to bear in mind the two terms
corresponding to what are called in Hermetism coagulation’ and
‘solution’, and to do so from two sides at once: thus on the ‘benefic’
side are ‘crystallization’ and ‘sublimation’, and on the ‘malefic’ side
are ‘precipitation’ and the final return to the indistinction of ‘chaos’. 3

At this point, the following question must be put: in order that
dissolution may be fully realized, is it sufficient that the movement
by which the ‘reign of quantity’ asserts itself with ever-growing
intensity should be more or less left to itself, and be allowed to pur-
sue its own course right up to its final goal? The truth is that such a
possibility, which has indeed already been suggested in what has
been said about the contemporary conceptions of the physicists and
the implications they carry as it were unconsciously (for it is obvi-
ous that modern ‘scientists’ have no idea where they are going),
belongs rather to a theoretical outlook on the situation, a ‘unilateral’
outlook affording only a very partial view of what must really hap-
pen. Actually, in order to undo the ‘knots’ resulting from the ‘solidi-
fication’ that has been going on up till now (and the word ‘knots’ is
used intentionally, as it suggests the effects of a certain kind of ‘coag-
ulation’ particularly connected with the realm of magic) the inter-
vention of something more directly effective for the purpose in view
is required, and this something must no longer belong to the
domain, the very restricted domain, to which the ‘reign of quantity’
itself properly belongs. It is easy to perceive, from the occasional

2. This is what the Hebrew Kabbalah, as was pointed out earlier, calls the ‘world
of rinds’ ( olam qlippoth); into this the ‘ancient kings of Edom’ fall, inasmuch as they
represent the unusable residues of past Manvantaras.

3. It should be evident that the two sides here referred to as ‘benefic’ and
‘malefic’ correspond exactly to the ‘right’ and ‘left’ sides on which the ‘elect’ and the
damned respectively are drawn up in the ‘Last Judgment’, which is nothing other
than the final ‘discrimination’ of the results of cyclical manifestation.

TOWARD DISSOLUTION 169

indications already given, that the action of influences of the subtle
order is involved; such action really began long ago to operate in the
modern world, although at first it did so in no very apparent man-
ner, and it has actually always co-existed with materialism from the
very moment at which the latter was first constituted in a clearly
defined form, as was indicated earlier when dealing with magnetism
and spiritualism, and the borrowings they have made from the sci-
entific ‘mythology’ of the period in which they came to birth. As has
also been pointed out before, though it be true that the hold of
materialism is slackening, there is no occasion to rejoice at the fact,
for cyclical manifestation is not yet complete, and the ‘fissures’ then
alluded to, the nature of which will shortly receive further consider-
ation, can only be produced from below; in other words, that which
‘interferes’ with the sensible world through those ‘fissures’ can be
nothing but an inferior ‘cosmic psychism’ in its most destructive
and disorganizing forms, and it is moreover clear that influences of
this kind are the only ones that are really suited for action having
dissolution as its objective. It is not difficult to see that thenceforth
everything that tends to favor and to extend these ‘interferences’
merely corresponds, whether consciously or otherwise, to a fresh
phase of the deviation of which materialism in reality represented a
less ‘advanced’ stage, even though the outward appearances of
things may not seem to support this view, appearances often being
highly deceptive.

While on this subject it seems desirable to point out that ill-
informed ‘traditionalists ’ 4 thoughtlessly rejoice at seeing modern
science in its various branches escaping to some extent from the
narrow limits within which its conceptions have been enclosed up
till now, and taking an attitude less grossly materialistic than that
maintained in the last century; they are even ready to suppose that
in some way or another profane science will in the end be reunited
with traditional science (of which their knowledge is minimal in
extent and singularly inaccurate, being chiefly based on modern

4. The word ‘traditionalism’ denotes only a tendency that may be more or less
vague and often wrongly applied, because it does not imply any effective knowledge
of traditional truths; this matter will again be referred to later.

170 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

deformations and ‘counterfeits’), but this, for reasons of principle
that have often been insisted on, is quite impossible. These same
‘traditionalists’ also rejoice, perhaps even more unreservedly, at see-
ing certain manifestations of subtle influences coming more and
more into the open, but it does not occur to them to wonder what
in the end may prove to be the true ‘quality’ of these influences (per-
haps they do not even suspect that there is any occasion to ask such
a question); and they base great hopes on what today is called
‘metapsychics’ as the key to the cure of the ills of the modern world,
which they are usually content to attribute exclusively to material-
ism as such, this again being a rather unfortunate delusion. What
they do not see (and in this they are much more influenced than
they think by the modern spirit with all the insufficiencies inherent
in it) is that they are really faced with a fresh stage in the develop-
ment, perfectly logical but of a logic truly ‘diabolical’, of the ‘plan’
according to which the progressive deviation of the modern world
is brought about. In this ‘plan’ materialism has of course played its
part, and undeniably a highly important part, but the mere nega-
tion that it represents has now become inadequate. It has given
efficient service in denying to man access to possibilities of a supe-
rior order, but it has not the power to unchain the inferior forces
that alone can bring to finality the work of disorder and dissolution.

The materialistic attitude, because of its inherent limitations,
involves risks that are similarly limited; its ‘thickness’, figuratively
speaking, protects anyone who persists in holding to it from all sub-
tle influences without distinction, and confers on him a sort of
immunity more or less like that of a mollusc living firmly enclosed
in its shell, the materialist deriving from this immunity the impres-
sion of security previously referred to. The shell may be taken to
represent the aggregate of conventionally recognized scientific con-
ceptions and of the corresponding mental habits, together with the
‘hardening’ of the ‘psycho-physiological’ constitution of the individ-
ual which they produce , 5 and if an opening is made in this shell
from below, as described earlieis the destructive subtle influences

5. It is of interest to note that the expression ‘hardened materialist’ is freely used
in current speech, doubtless without any suspicion that it is no mere figure of
speech, but actually corresponds to something very real.

TOWARD DISSOLUTION 171

will at once make their way in, and they will do so all the more easily
because, thanks to the negative work accomplished in the preceding
phase, no element of a superior order will be able to intervene in
such a way as to counteract them. It could also be said that the
period of materialism constitutes no more than a sort of prepara-
tion, predominantly theoretical, whereas the period of inferior psy-
chism introduces a ‘pseudo- realization leading in exactly the
opposite direction to that of true spiritual realization, but a fuller
explanation of this last point must await a later chapter. The paltry
security of ‘ordinary life’, which was the inseparable accompaniment
of materialism, is indeed from now onward seriously threatened,
and it will no doubt soon be seen more and more clearly, and by
more and more people, as having been a mere delusion; but what
advantage can this perception bring, if its sole result is an immediate
fall into another delusion, worse and more dangerous from every
point of view, because it involves consequences much more exten-
sive and more profound? This other delusion is that of an ‘inverted
spirituality’, and the various ‘neo-spiritualist’ movements that have
arisen and reached a certain development in our times, not except-
ing those which already show a more definitely ‘subversive’ charac-
ter, still represent no more than a weak and tentative prelude to it.

25

THE FISSURES
IN THE GREAT WALL

However far the ‘solidification’ of the sensible world may
have gone, it can never be carried so far as to turn the world into a
‘closed system’ such as is imagined by the materialists. The very
nature of things sets limits to ‘solidification’, and the more nearly
those limits are approached the more unstable is the corresponding
state of affairs; in actual fact, as we have seen, the point correspond-
ing to a maximum of ‘solidification’ has already been passed, and
the impression that the world is a ‘closed system’ can only from now
onward become more and more illusory and inadequate to the real-
ity. ‘Fissures’ have been mentioned previously as being the paths
whereby certain destructive forces are already entering, and must
continue to enter ever more freely; according to traditional symbol-
ism these ‘fissures’ occur in the ‘Great Wall’ that surrounds the
world and protects it from the intrusion of malefic influences com-
ing from the inferior subtle domain . 1 In order that this symbolism
may be fully understood in all its aspects, it is important to note
that a wall acts both as a protection and as a limitation: in a sense
therefore it can be said to have both advantages and inconveniences;

1. In the symbolism of the Hindu tradition the ‘Great Wall’ is the circular
mountain Lokaloka, which divides the ‘cosmos’ (loka) from the ‘outer darkness
( aloka ); and this symbolism is of course susceptible of analogical application either
to more extensive or to less extensive domains within the totality of cosmic mani-
festation, hence the special application now being made with respect to the corpo-
real world alone.

THE FISSURES IN THE GREAT WALL 173

but insofar as its principal purpose is to ensure an adequate defence
against attacks coming from below, the advantages are incompara-
bly the more important, for it is on the whole more useful to any-
one who happens to be enclosed within its perimeter to be kept out
of reach of what is below, than it is to be continuously exposed to
the ravages of the enemy, or worse still to a more or less complete
destruction. In any case, a walled space as such is not closed in at
the top, so that communication with superior domains is not pre-
vented, and this state of affairs is the normal one; but in the modern
period the ‘shell’ with no outlet built by materialism has cut off that
communication. Moreover, as already explained, because the
‘descent’ has not yet come to an end, the ‘shell’ must necessarily
remain intact overhead, that is, in the direction of that from which
humanity need not be protected since on the contrary only
beneficient influences can come that way; the ‘fissures’ occur only at
the base, and therefore in the actual protective wall itself, and the
inferior forces that make their way in through them meet with a
much reduced resistance because under such conditions no power
of a superior order can intervene in order to oppose them effec-
tively. Thus the world is exposed defenceless to all the attacks of its
enemies, the more so because, the present-day mentality being what
it is, the dangers that threaten it are wholly unperceived.

In the Islamic tradition these ‘fissures’ are those by which, at the
end of the cycle, the devastating hordes of Gog and Magog will force
their way in , 2 for they are unremitting in their efforts to invade this
world; these ‘entities’ represent the inferior influences in question.
They are considered as maintaining an underground existence, and
are described both as giants and as dwarfs; they may thus be identi-
fied, in accordance with what was said earlier on the subject, and at
least in certain connections, with the ‘guardians of the hidden trea-
sure’ and with the smiths of the ‘subterranean fire’, who have, it may
be recalled, an exceedingly malefic aspect; in all such symbolisms
the same kind of ‘infra-corporeal’ subtle influences are really always

2. In the Hindu tradition they are the demons Koka and Vikoka, whose names
are obviously similar.

174 the reign of quantity

involved . 3 If the truth be told, the attempts of these ‘entities’ to
insinuate themselves into the corporeal and human world are no
new thing, for they go back at least to somewhere near the begin-
ning of the Kali-Yuga , a period far more remote than that of ‘classi-
cal’ antiquity, by which the horizon of profane historians is
bounded. In this connection, the Chinese tradition relates in sym-
bolical terms that ‘Niu-koua [sister and wife of Fu Hsi, who is said
to have reigned jointly with him] melted stones of five colors 4 in
order to repair a tear in the sky made by a giant’ (apparently,
though it is not made quite clear, the tear was situated on the terres-
trial horizon ); 5 and this took place at a period not more than a few
centuries after the beginning of the Kali-Yuga.

Nevertheless, although the Kali-Yuga as a whole is intrinsically a
period of obscuration, so that ‘fissures’ have been possible ever since
it began, the degree of obscuration pervading its later phases is far
from having been attained at once, and that is why ‘fissures’ could be
repaired relatively easily in earlier times; it was nonetheless neces-
sary to maintain a constant vigilance against them, and this task was
naturally among those assigned to the spiritual centers of the vari-
ous traditions. Later on there came a period when, as a consequence
of the extreme ‘solidification’ of the world, these same ‘fissures’ were
much less to be feared, at least temporarily; this period corresponds
to the first part of modern times, the part that can be defined as

3. The symbolism of the ‘subterranean world’ is twofold, and, as in other cases,
it also has a superior meaning, a point more particularly explained in some of the
considerations set out in The King of the World-, but naturally only the inferior
meaning is here in question, a meaning which could be said to be literally ‘infernal’.

4. These five colors are white, black, blue, red, and yellow, corresponding in the
Far-Eastern tradition to the five elements, as well as to the four cardinal points and
the center.

5. It is also stated that ‘Niu-Koua cut off the four feet of the tortoise to put the
four extremities of the world in their place,’ so as to stabilize the earth; reference to
what was said earlier about the analogical correspondences between Fu Hsi and
Niu-koua will make it clear that the function of ensuring the stability and ‘solidity’
of the world belongs, according to this symbolism, to the substantial side of mani-
festation, and this agrees exactly with all the explanations given in this book on that
subject. [Guenon provides no references in his French text for these citations
regarding Niu-koua, but see Symbols of Sacred Science, chap. 20. Ed.]

THE FISSURES IN THE GREAT WALL 175

being characteristically mechanistic and materialistic, in which the
‘closed system’ alluded to was most nearly realized, at least to the
extent that any such thing is actually possible. Nowadays, that is to
say in the period which can be called the second part of modern
times and which has already begun, conditions are certainly very
different from the conditions obtaining in all earlier periods: not
only can ‘fissures’ occur more and more extensively, and be much
more serious in character, because a greater proportion of the
descending course of manifestation has been accomplished, but also
the possibilities of repairing them are not the same as they used to
be; the action of the spiritual centers has indeed become ever more
enclosed, because the superior influences that they normally trans-
mit to our world can no longer be manifested externally, since they
are held back by the ‘shell’ alluded to above; and when the whole of
the human and cosmic order is in such a condition, where could a
means of defence possibly be found such as might be effective in any
way against the ‘hordes of Gog and Magog’?

But that is not all: what has been said so far covers so to speak
only the negative side of the growing difficulties encountered by all
attempts to oppose the intrusion of malefic influences, among these
difficulties being a sort of inertia resulting from the general igno-
rance of such matters, and from ‘survivals’ of the materialistic men-
tality and of the outlook it engenders; this inertia may endure
longer than it otherwise would because the outlook in question has
become more or less instinctive in the moderns and is now incorpo-
rated in their very nature. Of course a majority of ‘spiritualists’ and
even of ‘traditionalists’, or of people who call themselves such, are in
fact quite as materialistic as other people when matters of this kind
are in question, so that the situation is made even more irremedia-
ble by the fact that those who most sincerely want to combat the
modern spirit are almost all unwittingly affected by it, and all their
efforts are therefore condemned to remain without any appreciable
result; for these are matters in which goodwill is far from being
sufficient; effective knowledge being needed as well, indeed, more
needed than anything else. But effective knowledge is the very thing
that is made impossible by the influence of the modern spirit with
all its limitations, even in the case of those who might have some

176 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

intellectual capabilities of the required kind if conditions were less
abnormal.

But apart from all these negative elements, the difficulties now
under review have an aspect that can be called positive, and this
may be taken to include everything in our world as we know it that
is actively favorable to the intervention of subtle influences of an
inferior kind, whether its work be done consciously or uncon-
sciously. The logical sequence here would be to consider in the first
place the more or less ‘determining’ part played by the actual agents
of the whole modern deviation, since the intervention of inferior
influences really represents a new phase in the said deviation, and
fits in exactly with the sequence of the ‘plan’ by which it is brought
about; it would clearly be necessary to seek in some such direction
for the conscious auxiliaries of the malefic forces, though the extent
to which they are individually conscious of what they are doing may
actually differ greatly in particular cases. As for the other auxiliaries,
those who act in good faith then, because they know nothing of the
true nature of the forces involved (thanks to the recently mentioned
influence of the modern spirit) are never anything but mere dupes,
though this does not prevent their activity from being proportional
to their sincerity and to their blindness; these auxiliaries are already
virtually numberless, and they can be placed in many categories,
ranging from the ingenuous adherents of all sorts of ‘neo-spiritual-
ist’ organizations to the ‘intuitionist’ philosophers, by way of the
‘metapsychical’ scientists and the psychologists of the more recent
schools. This matter need not be pursued any further for the
moment, for to do so would be to anticipate what will come later; in
the meantime some examples must be given of some of the ways in
which ‘fissures’ can actually be brought about, also of the ‘supports’
that the inferior order of subtle or psychic influences (for the terms
‘subtle’ and ‘psychic’ applied to a domain are for present purposes
synonymous) are able to find in the cosmic environment itself, to
assist them in bringing their action to bear on the human world and
to enable them to propagate themselves therein.

26

SHAMANISM
AND SORCERY

The present period corresponds to the final phases of a cyclical
manifestation, and for that reason must exhaust its most inferior
possibilities; that is why the period can be said to be using up every-
thing that had been set aside in earlier periods: that and nothing else
is truly characteristic of the modern experimental and quantitative
sciences in particular, together with their industrial applications.
For similar reasons the profane sciences, as has been said, even when
considered from a historical point of view as well as from the point
of view of their content, are really and truly ‘residues’ of some of the
traditional sciences . 1 There is yet another fact that accords with
those just mentioned, though its real significance is scarcely ever
grasped, and that is the frenzy with which the moderns have under-
taken the exhumation of the vestiges of past periods and vanished
civilizations, despite their incapacity really to understand anything
about them. This in itself is not a very reassuring symptom, because
of the nature of the subtle influences that remain attached to such
vestiges and are brought back into the light of day with them, and
are so to speak set at liberty by the exhumation as such, without

1. But only of some of them, for there were other traditional sciences which
have not left in the modern world even the smallest trace, however deformed and
deviated. It goes without saying, too, that all the enumerations and classifications
°f the philosophers apply only to the profane sciences, and that the traditional sci-
ences could in no way be made to fit into their narrow and ‘systematic’ categories;
at this time, more appropriately than ever before, could the Arabic saying be
applied to the current period, to the effect that ‘there are many sciences, but few
scientists’ (al-'ulum kathir walakin al-'ulama qatil).

I78 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

raising any suspicion in the minds of the investigators. In order to
explain this more fully, it will first be necessary to deal briefly with
certain things that in themselves are as a matter of fact wholly out-
side the modern world, but are not for that reason any the less capa-
ble of being used so as to exert a particularly ‘disorganizing’
influence in that world; the rest of this chapter is therefore a digres-
sion only in appearance, and it will incidentally provide an oppor-
tunity for the elucidation of certain matters about which too little is
generally known.

In the first place, yet one more confusion and error of interpreta-
tion arising from the modern mentality must be dissipated, and that
is the idea that there exist things that are purely ‘material’. This con-
ception belongs exclusively to the modern mentality, and when it is
disencumbered from all the secondary complications added to it by
the special theories of the physicists, it amounts to no more than the
idea that there exist beings and things that are solely corporeal, and
that their existence and their constitution involve no element that is
not corporeal. This idea is directly linked to the profane point of
view as expressed, perhaps in its most complete form, in the sci-
ences of today, for these sciences are characterized by the absence of
any attachment to principles of a superior order, and thus the things
taken as the objects of their study must themselves be thought of as
being without any such attachment (whereby the ‘residual’ charac-
ter of the said sciences is once again made evident); this kind of out-
look can be regarded as indispensable in order to enable science to
deal with its object, for if a contrary admission were made, science
would at once be compelled to recognize that the real nature of its
object eludes it. It may perhaps be superfluous to seek elsewhere the
reason for the enthusiasm displayed by scientists in discrediting any
other conception, by presenting it as a ‘superstition’ arising in the
imagination of ‘primitive’ peoples, who, it is suggested, can have
been nothing but savages or men of an infantile mentality, as the
‘evolutionist’ theories make them out to have been; but whether the
reason be mere incomprehension on their part or a conscious parti-
sanship, the scientists do succeed in producing a caricature of the
situation convincing enough to induce a complete acceptance of
their interpretation in everyone who believes implicitly in whatever

SHAMANISM AND SORCERY 179

they say, namely, in a large majority of our contemporaries. This is
what has happened in the particular case of the ethnologists’ theo-
ries about what they have agreed to call ‘animism’; strictly speaking
this word might well possess an unobjectionable meaning, but only
on condition that it were understood quite otherwise than they
understand it, and that no meaning which is not justifiable etymo-
logically were admitted.

The truth is that the corporeal world cannot be regarded as being
a whole sufficient to itself, nor as being isolated from the totality of
universal manifestation: on the contrary, whatever the present state
of things may look like as a result of ‘solidification’, the corporeal
world proceeds entirely from the subtle order, in which it can be
said to have its immediate principle, and through that order as
intermediary it is attached successively to formless manifestation
and finally to the non-manifested. If that were not so, its existence
could be nothing but a pure illusion, a sort of phantasmagoria
behind which there would be nothing at all, which amounts to say-
ing that it would not really exist in any way. That being the case,
there cannot be anything in the corporeal world such that its exist-
ence does not depend directly on elements belonging to the subtle
order, and beyond them, on some principle that can be called ‘spiri-
tual’, for without the latter no manifestation of any kind is possible,
on any level whatsoever. Confining attention to the subtle elements,
which must therefore be present in everything and are merely more
or less hidden according to circumstances, it can be said that they
correspond to that which properly speaking constitutes the ‘psychic’
order in the human being; it is therefore legitimate in every case, by
a natural extension implying no ‘anthropomorphism’ but only a
perfectly valid analogy, also to call them ‘psychic’ (and that is why a
cosmic psychism was spoken of previously), or even ‘animic’, for
these two words, according to their original meanings and their
respectively Greek and Latin derivations, are really precisely synony-
mous. It follows from this that there can in fact be no ‘inanimate’
objects in existence, and also that ‘life’ is one of the conditions to
which all corporeal existence without exception is subject; and that
is why nobody has ever arrived at a satisfactory definition of the
difference between the ‘living’ and the ‘non-living’, for that question,

180 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

like so many others in modern philosophy and science, is only insol-
uble because there is no good reason for posing it, since the ‘non-
living’ has no place in the domain to which the question is related,
and the only differences involved are really no more than mere
differences of degree.

Such a way of looking at things can be called ‘animism’ without
objection, if that word is held to imply nothing more or other than
the affirmation that there are ‘animic’ elements in all things; it is
clear that this kind of animism is directly opposed to mechanism,
just as reality itself is opposed to mere outward appearance. It is
equally clear that this conception is ‘primitive’, but it is so quite sim-
ply because it is true, which is almost exactly the opposite of what
the evolutionists mean when they qualify it in that way. At the same
time, and for the same reasons, this conception is necessarily com-
mon to all the traditional doctrines; it can therefore be said to be
‘normal’, whereas the opposite idea, that of ‘inanimate’ things (of
which one of the most extreme expressions is found in the Cartesian
theory of ‘animal-machines’) represents a real anomaly, but then so
do all specifically modern and profane ideas. But it must be clearly
understood that the traditional conception in no way implies any
‘personification’ of the natural forces that are studied by the physi-
cists after their own fashion, and still less any ‘adoration’ of those
forces, as is made out to be the case by those for whom ‘animism’ is
something they think they can call ‘primitive religion’; in actual fact
the only considerations involved are such as belong exclusively to
the domain of cosmology, and they can find their applications in
various traditional sciences. It should be superfluous to point out
that the question of the ‘psychic’ elements inherent in things, or of
forces of that order expressed or manifested through things, has
nothing whatever to do with the ‘spiritual’; the confusion of these
two domains is yet another purely modern phenomenon, and is
doubtless not unconnected with the idea of making a ‘religion’ out
of what is really science in the most precise sense of the word; our
contemporaries, despite their pretensions to ‘clear ideas’ (evidently
a direct inheritance from the mechanism and ‘universal material-
ism’ of Descartes) mix up in a very curious way the most heteroge-
neous things and those that are the most essentially distinct!

SHAMANISM AND SORCERY l8l

It is important to note at this point, in view of what is to follow,
that the ethnologists habitually treat as ‘primitive’ forms that are
only degenerate to a greater or less extent; and these forms are in
any case very often not really on as low a level as might be supposed
from the accounts that are given of them; however that may be, this
explains how ‘animism’, which is in itself only a particular feature of
a doctrine, has come to be taken as characterizing a doctrine in its
entirety. Indeed, where there is degeneration, it is naturally the
superior part of the doctrine, its metaphysical or spiritual side, that
disappears more or less completely, so that something that was
originally only secondary, and in particular the cosmological and
‘psychic’ side— to which ‘animism’ and its applications properly
belong— inevitably assumes a preponderant importance. The
remainder, even if it still persists to some extent, may easily elude
the observer from outside, all the more so because that observer,
being ignorant of the profound significance of rites and symbols, is
unable to recognize in them any elements belonging to a superior
order (any more than he can recognize them in the vestiges of com-
pletely extinct civilizations) and thinks that everything can be
explained indifferently in terms of magic, or even sometimes of
mere ‘sorcery’.

A very clear example of this sort of thing can be found in a case
such as that of ‘shamanism’, which is generally regarded as one of
the typical forms of ‘animism’; the derivation of the word is rather
uncertain, but it is generally used to denote the aggregate of the tra-
ditional doctrines and practices of certain Mongol peoples of Sibe-
ria, though a few people extend its meaning to cover anything that
may present similar features in any country. Many people regard
‘shamanism’ as almost synonymous with sorcery, but it certainly
should not be so, for the two things are quite distinct; the word has
undergone a deviation opposite to that of ‘fetishism’, which really
has etymologically the meaning of ‘sorcery’, but has been applied to
things that include nothing of the kind. It may be noted in this con-
nection that the distinction some people have tried to establish
between ‘shamanism’ and ‘fetishism’, regarded as being two varieties
of ‘animism’, is neither as clear nor as important as they think:
whether human beings, as in the first case, or various objects, as in

182 the reign of quantity

the second, chiefly serve as ‘supports’ or ‘condensers’, if that is the
right word, for certain subtle influences, the difference is only one of
‘technical’ modalities involving in themselves no truly essential
differences . 2

If we consider ‘shamanism’ properly so called, the existence of a
highly developed cosmology becomes apparent, of a kind that
might suggest concordances with other traditions in many respects,
and first with respect to a separation of the ‘three worlds’, which
seems to be its very foundation. ‘Shamanism’ will also be found to
include rites comparable to some that belong to traditions of the
highest order: some of them, for example, recall in a striking way
the Vedic rites, and particularly those that are most clearly derived
from the primordial tradition, such as those in which the symbols
of the tree and of the swan predominate. There can therefore be no
doubt that ‘shamanism’ is derived from some form that was, at least
originally, a regular and normal traditional form; moreover it has
retained up to the present day a certain ‘transmission’ of the powers
necessary for the exercise of the functions of the ‘shaman’; but as
soon as it becomes clear that the ‘shaman’ directs his activity partic-
ularly toward the most inferior traditional sciences, such as magic
and divination, a very real degeneration must be suspected, such as
may sometimes amount to a real deviation, as can happen all too
easily to such sciences whenever they become over-developed.
There are indeed some rather disquieting indications in that direc-
tion, one of them being the connection established between the
‘shaman’ and an animal, a connection restricted to a single individ-
ual and so in no way assimilable to the collective connection rightly
or wrongly called ‘totemism’. It should be added that all this could
in itself receive a perfectly legitimate explanation quite unconnected
with sorcery; what gives it a suspicious character is the fact that
among some peoples, if not among all, the animal is considered as
being more or less a form of the ‘shaman’ himself; and there may be

2 . In what follows, a certain amount of information about ‘shamanism’ is
drawn from an exposition called ‘Shamanism of the Natives of Siberia’ by 1-M.
Casanowicz (taken from the Smithsonian Report for 1924) to which the authors
attention was kindly called by A.K. Coomaraswamy.

SHAMANISM AND SORCERY 183

no great distance between an identification of that kind, and ‘lycan-
thropy’ as it exists more particularly among the black races . 3

But there is something else as well, and something more directly
connected with our subject: from among the psychic influences
with which they deal, the ‘shamans’ quite naturally distinguish two
kinds, one benefic and the other malefic, and as there is obviously
nothing to be feared from the former, they pay attention almost
exclusively to the latter: such at any rate appears most often to be
the case, though it may be that ‘shamanism’ includes various forms
that might show differences in that respect. But there is never any
question of a ‘cult’ devoted to the malefic influences, which would
be a sort of conscious ‘satanism’, as has often been wrongly imag-
ined; the only objective is, in principle, that of preventing them
from doing harm, or of neutralizing or diverting their activity. The
same could be said with truth of other supposed ‘devil-worshippers’
living in various places: in a general way it is scarcely likely that real
‘satanism’ could be characteristic of an entire people. Nevertheless,
it is still true that, whatever may be the original intention, the han-
dling of influences of this sort, when no appeal is made to influences
of a superior order (still less to truly spiritual influences), finally
leads by force of circumstances to real sorcery, which is a very differ-
ent thing of course from the sorcery of the common ‘rustic magi-
cian’ of the West, for this last represents no more than the last scraps
of a magical knowledge as degenerate and diminished as it could be,
and on the point of complete extinction. The magical part of ‘sha-
manism’ doubtless has a vitality of quite a different order, and that is
why it is something really to be feared in more than one respect; for
the practically constant contact with inferior psychic forces is as
dangerous as could be, first for the ‘shaman’ himself, as is to be
expected, but also from another point of view of a much less nar-
rowly ‘localized’ interest. There are indeed people who, by working

3. There is evidence worthy of belief to the effect that there exists in a distant
part of the Sudan a whole population of at least twenty thousand people who are
lycanthropic’; there are also, in other African countries, secret organizations, such
as that to which the name of ‘Society of the Leopard’ was given, in which certain
forms of lycanthropy play a predominant part.

184 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

more consciously and with a more extensive knowledge (and this
does not mean knowledge of a higher order) might be able to make
use of these same forces for quite different ends, unbeknown to the
‘shamans’ or those whose work is similar, for they act as nothing
more than mere instruments for accumulating the forces in ques-
tion at pre-determined points. It is known that there are in the
world a certain number of ‘repositories’ of influences, the distribu-
tion of which is certainly no matter of chance, serving only too well
the designs of the ‘powers’ responsible for the whole modern devia-
tion; but that demands some further explanations, for it may seem
surprising at first sight that the remains of what was once an
authentic tradition should lend themselves to a ‘subversion’ of this
kind.

27

PSYCHIC

RESIDUES

The last point mentioned in connection with ‘shamanism’
needs to be clarified, for it contains the main reason for the intro-
duction of the subject; for this purpose it must be made clear that
the case of the persistent vestiges of a degenerate tradition that has
lost its superior or ‘spiritual’ part is fully comparable to the case of
the psychic remains left behind by a human being in passing to
another state, for these remains can be used for any purpose once
they have been abandoned by the ‘spirit’. Whether they be made use
of consciously by a magician or a sorcerer, or unconsciously by spir-
itualists, the more or less malefic effects that can accrue obviously
have nothing to do with the inherent character of the being to
whom they belonged before; they are no longer anything but a spe-
cial category of ‘wandering influences’, to use the terminology of the r
Far-Eastern tradition, and they have kept at the most a purely illu-
sory likeness to the said being. Comparisons of this kind can only
be fully understood if it is remembered that even spiritual infl-
uences themselves must necessarily, if they are to come into action
in our world, take appropriate ‘supports’, first of all in the psychic
order, then in the corporeal order itself, so that the result is some-
thing analogous to the constitution of a human being. If later on the
spiritual influences for any reason withdraw themselves, their
former corporeal supports, whether places or objects (and when
places are in question their situation is naturally connected with the
‘sacred geography’ mentioned earlier) will nonetheless remain
charged with psychic elements that will be all the stronger and more
persistent through having previously served as the intermediaries

1 86 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

and the instruments of a yet more powerful action. It would be log-
ical to conclude that important traditional and initiatic centers,
more or less long since extinct, must in general be the most impor-
tant potential sources of danger, whether arising from violent reac-
tions provoked in the psychic conglomerates persisting in such
places by sheer imprudence, or more especially from the seizure of
these elements by ‘black magicians’, to use the accepted expression,
who could then manoeuvre them at will in order to obtain results
conforming to a plan.

The existence of the first of these two sources of danger goes a
long way toward explaining the harmful character of certain ves-
tiges of extinct civilizations when they come to be exhumed by peo-
ple who, like the modern archaeologists, know nothing of such
matters, and so inevitably fail to act with prudence. That is not to
say that there may not sometimes be other factors in the situation:
for instance, a particular ancient civilization may have degenerated
through an excessive development of magic in its final phases , 1 and
its remains will naturally then always bear the imprint of that devel-
opment in the shape of psychic influences of a very inferior order. It
is also possible, even in the absence of any degeneration of that sort,
that places or objects may have been specially prepared by way of
defensive action against anyone who might touch them improperly,
for precautions of this kind are in no way illegitimate as such,
although the fact of attaching too great an importance to them is
none too favorable an indication, for it affords evidence of preoccu-
pations rather remote from pure spirituality, and even perhaps of a
certain lack of knowledge of the power possessed by pure spiritual-
ity, which should make it unnecessary to resort to such ‘extras’. But
apart from all this, persistent psychic influences, when deprived of
the ‘spirit’ that formerly directed them, are reduced to a sort of ‘lar-
val’ state, and can easily by themselves react to a particular provoca-
tion, however involuntary it may be, in a more or less disordered
manner, and in any case in a manner quite unrelated to the inten-
tions of those who used theifi formerly for purposes of quite
another order. Just in the same way the gruesome manifestations of

1. Such appears to have been the case with ancient Egypt in particular.

PSYCHIC RESIDUES 187

psychic ‘corpses’ that sometimes occur in spiritualist seances, have
absolutely no relation in any circumstances whatever to the possi-
bilities of action or of desire of the individualities whose subtle
forms they were, and whose posthumous ‘identity’ they imitate
more or less badly, to the great amazement of the ingenuous who
are all too ready to take them for ‘spirits’.

So under many conditions the influences in question can be quite
pernicious enough, even when they are simply left to themselves;
this fact is merely a result of the inherent nature of the forces of the
‘intermediary world’, about which nobody can do anything, any
more than they can prevent ‘physical’ forces, meaning the forces
belonging to the corporeal order studied by the physicists, from act-
ing in certain circumstances so as to cause accidents for which no
human will can be held responsible; what is revealed by all this is
the true significance of modern antiquarian researches, and the part
they actually play in opening up some of the ‘fissures’ previously
referred to. But in addition, these same influences are at the mercy
of anyone who knows how to ‘capture’ them, just as are ‘physical’
forces; it goes without saying that either can be made to serve the
most diverse and even the most contradictory ends, according to
the intentions of whoever has taken control of them and can direct
them to his chosen purpose; and, when subtle influences are
involved, if their controller happens to be a ‘black magician’, it is
obvious that they will be used by him for a purpose quite contrary
to that for which they might have been used in earlier times by the
qualified representatives of a regular tradition.

All that has been said so far relates to the vestiges left by an
entirely extinct tradition; but there is another case to be considered
alongside this one: that of an ancient traditional civilization that
lives on so to speak for itself alone, in the sense that its degeneration
has proceeded to such a point that the ‘spirit’ has at last withdrawn
entirely from it. Certain kinds of knowledge, having nothing of the
spiritual in them and belonging only to the order of contingent
applications, may still continue to be transmitted, particularly the
more inferior among them, but they will naturally thereafter be lia-
ble to every kind of deviation, for they themselves represent nothing
more than ‘residues’ of another kind, the pure doctrine on which

1 88 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

they ought normally to depend having disappeared. In this sort of
case of ‘survival’ the psychic influences set to work in earlier times
by the representatives of the tradition will again be liable to be ‘cap-
tured’, even without the knowledge of their apparent guardians,
who will thenceforth be illegitimate and entirely without real
authority; those who really make use of the influences through
them will thus have the advantage of having at their disposal not
only so-called ‘inanimate’ objects as unconscious instruments of the
action they want to exercise, but also living men who serve no less
well as ‘supports’ to the influences, and whose real existence confers
on them a much greater vitality. Exactly this sort of thing was in
view in quoting an example like that of ‘shamanism’, but of course
with the reservation that it must not be held to apply indiscrimi-
nately to all the things that are commonly grouped under that
rather conventional heading, for they may not all have arrived at an
equal degree of decadence.

A tradition deviated to that extent is really dead as such, just as
dead as a tradition that no longer even appears to be in existence; if
there were any life left in it, however little, no such subversion could
in any event take place, for it consists in nothing but a reversal of
what remains of the tradition so as to make it work in a direction by
definition anti-traditional. It is however as well to add that before
things reach that point, and as soon as traditional organizations are
so diminished and enfeebled as no longer to be capable of adequate
resistance, the more or less direct agents of the ‘adversary ’ 2 can
begin to work their way in with a view to hastening the time when
‘subversion’ will become possible; they are not always sure to suc-
ceed, for whatever still has some life can always recover itself; but if
death takes place, the enemy will then be found to be as it were in
possession and ready to take advantage of his position and to use
the ‘corpse’ for his own purposes. The representatives of everything
in the Western world that still retains an authentically traditional
character, in the exoteric as well as in the initiatic domain, might be
thought to have the strongest possible interest in paying attention to

2. The literal meaning of the Hebrew word Shaytan is ‘adversary’, and the ‘pow-
ers’ now under consideration are truly ‘satanic’ in character.

PSYCHIC RESIDUES 189

this last observation while there is still time, for all around them the
menacing signs indicating ‘infiltrations’ of this kind are unfortu-
nately by no means indiscernible by anyone who knows how to find
them.

Another consideration having its own importance is this: if the
‘adversary’ (as to whose nature some more exact indications will
follow) has something to gain by taking possession of places that
were the seat of former spiritual centers, it is not solely because of
the psychic influences accumulated in them and more or less free to
be made use of, but it is also for the very reason that the places are
where they are, for of course they were not chosen arbitrarily for the
part they had to play at one time or another, and in connection with
one traditional form or another. ‘Sacred geography’, the knowledge
of which determines the choice in question, is susceptible, like every
other traditional science of a contingent order, of being diverted
from its legitimate purpose and of being applied ‘inversely’. If a
place is ‘privileged’ to serve for the emission and direction of psy-
chic influences when they are operating as vehicles of a spiritual
action, it will be no less so when these same psychic influences are
used in quite another way and for ends opposed to all spirituality. It
may be observed in passing that the danger of the misdirection of
certain kinds of knowledge, of which this last is a very clear exam-
ple, accounts for much of the secrecy that is quite natural in a nor-
mal civilization; but the moderns show themselves to be entirely
incapable of understanding this, for they commonly mistake what is
really a measure designed as far as possible to prevent the misuse of
knowledge for a desire to monopolize that knowledge. And in truth
secrecy only ceases to be effective when the organizations that are
the repositories of the knowledge in question allow unqualified
individuals to penetrate into their ranks, for these individuals may
even be agents of the ‘adversary’, and if they are so one of their first
objects will be to discover the secrets. All this has of course no di-
rect relation to the true initiatic secret, which resides, as explained
earlier, exclusively in the ‘ineffable’ and ‘incommunicable’, and is
therefore obviously protected from all indiscreet research; neverthe-
less, although none but contingent matters are in question here, it
must be recognized that the precautions that may be taken within

190 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

the contingent order with a view to avoiding all deviation, and thus
all harmful action that might arise from it, are far from having in
practice only a relatively negligible interest.

In any case, whether it be a question of the places themselves, of
the influences remaining attached to them, or again of knowledge of
the kind just mentioned, the old adage corruptio optimi pessima may
be recalled, and may be applied perhaps more accurately here than
in any other case; and moreover corruption’ is just the right word,
even in its most literal sense, for the ‘residues’ here concerned are, as
stated at the beginning, comparable to the products of the decom-
position of a once living being; and as all corruption is more or less
contagious, these products of the dissolution of things past will
themselves exercise, wherever they may be ‘projected’, a particularly
dissolving and disaggregating action, especially if they are made use
of by a will clearly conscious of its objectives. All this may be likened
to a sort of ‘necromancy’, making use of psychic remains quite other
than those of human individuals, and it is by no means the least
redoubtable sort, for it has by its nature a field of action far more
extensive than that of common witchcraft, indeed no comparison
between the two being possible in that respect: matters have reached
such a point nowadays that our contemporaries must indeed be
blind not to have even the least suspicion of where they stand!

28

THE SUCCESSIVE
STAGES IN
ANTI-TRADITIONAL
ACTION

The material presented to the reader hitherto and the exam-
ples given should make it easier to understand, if only in a general
way, the precise character of the stages in the anti-traditional action
that has really ‘made’ the modern world as such; but it is of first
importance not to forget that, since all effective action necessarily
presupposes agents, anti-traditional action is like all other kinds of
action, so that it cannot be a sort of spontaneous or ‘fortuitous’ pro-
duction, and, since it is exercised particularly in the human domain,
it must of necessity involve the intervention of human agents. The
fact that it has conformed to the specific character of the cyclic
period in which it has been working explains why it was possible
and why it was successful, but is not enough to explain the manner
of its realization, nor to indicate the various measures put into oper-
ation to arrive at its result. In any case, a little reflection on what fol-
lows should suffice to bring conviction, for the spiritual influences
themselves act in every traditional organization through human
beings as intermediaries and as authorized representatives of the
tradition, although the tradition is really ‘supra-human’ in its
essence; there is all the more reason why the same condition should
apply when only psychic influences come into the picture, especially
such as are of the lowest order, and are the very antithesis of a power
transcendent with respect to our world, apart from the fact that the

192 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

character of ‘counterfeit’, everywhere manifested in this domain,
and to be referred to again later, makes human intermediaries even
more rigorously necessary. On the other hand, initiation, in what-
ever form it may appear, is that which really incarnates the ‘spirit’ of
a tradition, and is also that which allows of the effective realization
of ‘supra-human’ states; obviously therefore initiation is the thing
that must be opposed (at least insofar as any such opposition is
really conceivable) by anti-traditional action, which tries by every
means to drag men toward the ‘infra-human’. The term ‘counter-
initiation’ is therefore the best for describing that to which the
human agents through whom the anti-traditional action is accom-
plished belong, both as a whole and in their various degrees (for,
like initiation itself, it must necessarily comprise degrees); and this
term is not merely a conventional expression used for convenience
to designate something that really has no name, for in its form and
in its meaning it corresponds as exactly as possible to very precise
realities.

It is rather remarkable that in considering the whole assemblage
of all the things that really constitute modern civilization, from
whatever point of view it is envisaged, one is always driven to the
conclusion that everything seems to be increasingly artificial, dena-
tured, and falsified. Many of those who criticize modern civilization
today are struck by the fact, even when they do not know how to
carry the matter any further and have not the least suspicion of
what really lies behind it. A little logic should, it seems, be enough
to indicate that if everything has become artificial, the mentality to
which this state of things corresponds must be no less artificial than
everything else, that it too must be ‘manufactured’ and not sponta-
neous; and once this simple reflection has been made, indications
pointing in the same direction cannot fail to be seen in almost
indefinitely growing multitude everywhere. Nevertheless it seems
unfortunately to be very difficult to escape sufficiently far from the
‘suggestions’ to which the modern world owes both its existence
as such and its persistence, for even those who declare themselves
most resolutely ‘anti-modern’ generally see nothing whatever of all
this, and that is why their expenditure of effort is so often a dead
loss, or at any rate has almost no real significance.

THE SUCCESSIVE STAGES IN ANTI-TRADITIONAL ACTION 193

The anti-traditional action necessarily had to aim both at a
change in the general mentality and at the destruction of all tradi-
tional institutions in the West, since the West is where it began to
work first and most directly, while awaiting the proper time for an
attempt to extend its operations over the whole world, using the
Westerners duly prepared to become its instruments. Moreover,
once the mentality had been changed, the institutions could be the
more easily destroyed because they would then no longer conform
to it; the work that aims at a deviation of mentality therefore
appears to be really fundamental, and on that work all else must
depend in one way or another; attention will therefore be chiefly
directed toward it. It is a work that obviously could not be made
effective all at once, although perhaps the most astonishing thing of
all is the speed with which it has been possible to induce Westerners
to forget everything connected with the existence of a traditional
civilization in their countries; if one thinks of the total incompre-
hension of the Middle Ages and everything connected with them
which became apparent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
ries, it becomes easy to understand that so complete and abrupt a
change cannot have come about in a natural and spontaneous way.
However that may be, the first task was as it were to confine men
within the limits of their own individuality, and this was the task of
rationalism, as previously explained, for rationalism denies to the
being the possession or use of any faculty of a transcendent order;
it goes without saying moreover that rationalism began its work
before ever it was known by that name, and before it took on its
more especially philosophical form, as has been shown in connec-
tion with Protestantism; and besides, the ‘humanism’ of the Renais-
sance was no more than the direct precursor of rationalism properly
so called, for the very word ‘humanism’ implies a pretension to
bring everything down to purely human elements and thus (at least
in practice if not yet by virtue of an expressly formulated theory) to
exclude everything of a supra-individual order. The next thing to do
was to turn the attention of the individual toward external and sen-
sible objects, in order as it were to enclose him, not only within the
human domain, but within the much narrower limits of the corpo-
real world alone; that is the starting-point of the whole of modern

194 the reign of quantity

science, which was destined to continue to work in the same direc-
tion, thus making the limitation more and more effective. The con-
stitution of scientific or, if preferred, of philosophico-scientific
theories also had to be embarked upon gradually (and here it is nec-
essary to do no more than to summarize matters already dealt with);
mechanism prepared the way directly for materialism, which was to
mark the more or less irremediable limitation of the mental horizon
to the corporeal domain, thenceforth looked upon as the only ‘real-
ity’, and itself stripped of everything that could not be regarded as
simply ‘material’; naturally, the elaboration of the very notion of
‘matter’ by the physicists had an important part to play at this point.
This is the point at which the ‘reign of quantity’ was really entered
upon: profane science, mechanistic ever since Descartes, became
more specifically materialistic after the second half of the eighteenth
century, and was to become more and more exclusively quantitative
in its successive theories, while at the same time materialism insinu-
ated itself into the general mentality and finally succeeded in stabi-
lizing that attitude, without resort to any kind of theoretical form-
ulation; thus it became all the more diffused and passed finally into
the state of being the sort of ‘instinct’ that has been called ‘practical
materialism’. This attitude was to be yet further reinforced by the
industrial applications of quantitative science, which had the effect
of attaching men more and more completely to purely material real-
izations. Man ‘mechanized’ everything and ended at last by mecha-
nizing himself, falling little by little into the condition of numerical
units, parodying unity, yet lost in the uniformity and indistinction
of the ‘masses’, that is, in pure multiplicity and nothing else. Surely
that is the most complete triumph of quantity over quality that can
be imagined.

Nevertheless, while the work of ‘materialization’ and ‘quantifica-
tion’ was proceeding (and by the way it is not yet finished and never
can be, because a complete reduction to pure quantity is not realiz-
able within manifestation), another work, opposed to it only in
appearance, had already begun, and it may be remembered that it
really began concurrently with materialism properly so called. This
second part of anti-traditional action had to lead not to ‘solidifica-
tion’ but to ‘dissolution’; nevertheless, far from contradicting the

THE SUCCESSIVE STAGES IN ANTI-TRADITIONAL ACTION 195

tendency characterized as reduction to quantity, it was bound to
reinforce it as soon as the greatest possible ‘solidification’ had been
reached, and as soon as the said tendency had passed beyond its first
objective and had begun to try to assimilate the continuous to the
discontinuous, thus itself becoming a tendency toward dissolution.
This is the moment at which the second kind of work, which had at
first only been carried out in a more or less hidden manner by way
of preparation, and in any case on a restricted scale, had to come
into the open and in its turn to cover an increasingly wide field,
while at the same time quantitative science became less strictly
materialistic in the proper sense of the word, and even in the end
ceased to lean on the notion of ‘matter’, which had been rendered
more and more inconsistent and ‘evanescent’ as a consequence of
theoretical elaborations applied to it. This is the condition in which
we now are: materialism merely survives for its own sake, and no
doubt it may well survive a good deal longer, especially in the form
of ‘practical materialism’, but in any case, it has ceased henceforth to
play the principal part in anti-traditional action.

After having enclosed the corporeal world as completely as possi-
ble, it was necessary, while guarding against the re-establishment of
any communication with superior domains, to open it up again
from below, so as to allow the dissolving and destructive forces of
the inferior subtle domain to penetrate into it. It is the ‘unleashing’
of these forces, so to speak, and the setting of them to work to com-
plete the deviation of our world and effectively to bring it toward
final dissolution, that constitutes the second part or second phase
referred to. It is right to regard the two phases as distinct, though
they have in part been simultaneous, for in the total plan of the
modern deviation they follow one another logically and only reach
their full effectiveness successively; moreover, as soon as material-
ism had been established, the first phase was in a sense virtually
complete and could be left to take its course in the form of a devel-
opment of everything implied in materialism as such. That is the
moment at which the preparation of the second phase began, and
none but its first effects have as yet become apparent, but they have
become sufficiently apparent to allow their sequel to be foreseen,
and to make it possible to say with no exaggeration whatever that

196 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

the second aspect of anti-traditional action moves from now
onwards into first place in the designs of what was at first compre-
hensively described as the ‘adversary’ but can now, and with greater
exactitude, be named the ‘counter- initiation’

29

DEVIATION

AND SUBVERSION

The anti-traditional action by which the modern world has
in a sense been ‘manufactured’ has hitherto been considered as an
operation designed primarily to bring about a deviation from the
normal state, that is, from the state normal to all traditional civiliza-
tions whatever may be their particular forms, something easy to
understand and requiring no further comment. On the other hand,
there is a distinction to be made between deviation and subversion:
deviation can be regarded as comprising an indefinite multiplicity
of degrees, so that it can go to work gradually and imperceptibly;
this is exemplified by the gradual passage of the modern mentality
from ‘humanism’ and rationalism to mechanism, and thence to
materialism, and again in the process whereby profane science has
elaborated successive theories each more purely quantitative in
character than the last. This makes it possible to say that all such
deviation, from its earliest beginnings, has steadily and progres-
sively tended toward the establishment of the ‘reign of quantity’. But
when deviation reaches its limit, it ends by being a real ‘contradic-
tion’, that is to say a state diametrically opposed to the normal
order, and only then can ‘subversion’ in the etymological sense of
the word properly be spoken of; needless to say, ‘subversion’ in this
sense must in no way be confused with the ‘reversal’ referred to in
connection with the final instant of the cycle, it being indeed the
exact opposite since the ‘reversal’ actually happens after the ‘subver-
sion’ and at the moment when subversion seems complete, and is
really a rectification whereby the normal order is re-established,
and whereby the ‘primordial state’, representing perfection in the
human domain, is restored.

198 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

As against this, it could be said that subversion, thus understood,
is but the last stage of deviation and is its goal, or, in other words,
that deviation as a whole has no tendency other than to bring about
subversion, and that is true enough; in the present state of affairs,
though it cannot yet be said that subversion is complete, the signs of
it are very evident in everything in which the special characteristic
of ‘counterfeit’ or ‘parody’ is conspicuous. This characteristic has
already been mentioned more than once, and is to be dealt with
more fully later. For the moment no more need be said than that
this particular characteristic affords by itself a very significant indi-
cation of the origin of anything that shows it, and consequently of
the origin of the modern deviation itself, the ‘satanic’ nature of
which is thus brought out very clearly. The word ‘satanic’ can
indeed be properly applied to all negation and reversal of order,
such as is so incontestably in evidence in everything we now see
around us: is the modern world really anything whatever but a
direct denial of all traditional truth? At the same time, and more or
less of necessity, the spirit of negation is the spirit of lying; it wears
every disguise, often the most unexpected, in order to avoid being
recognized for what it is, and even in order to pass itself off as the
very opposite of what it is; this is where counterfeit comes in; and
this is the moment to recall that it is said that ‘Satan is the ape of
God’, and also that he ‘transfigures himself into an angel of light’. In
the end, this amounts to saying that he imitates in his own way, by
altering and falsifying it so as always to make it serve his own ends,
the very thing he sets out to oppose: thus, he will so manage matters
that disorder takes on the appearance of a false order, he will hide
the negation of all principle under the affirmation of false princi-
ples, and so on. Naturally, nothing of that kind can ever really be
more than dissimulation and even caricature, but it is presented
cleverly enough to induce an immense majority of men to allow
themselves to be deceived by it; and why should we be astonished at
this, when it is so easy to observe both the extent to which trickery,
even of the crudest sort, succeeds in imposing itself on the crowd,
and also the difficulty of subsequently undeceiving them? Vulgus
vult decipi was already a saying of the ancients of the ‘classical
period’, and no doubt there have always been people, though never
as many as in our days, ready to add: ergo decipiaturl

DEVIATION AND SUBVERSION I99

Nevertheless, anyone who speaks of counterfeit thereby suggests
the idea of parody, for they are almost synonyms; there is invariably
a grotesque element in affairs of this kind, and it may be more
apparent or less so, but it ought never to escape the notice of
observers, even observers of only a very moderate perspicacity, were
it not for the fact that natural perspicacity in that direction is abol-
ished by the ‘suggestions’ to which they are unconsciously sub-
jected. This is the direction in which falsehood, however clever it
may be, cannot do otherwise than betray itself; it is also of course a
‘label’ of origin, inseparable from counterfeit itself, which should
normally make it recognizable as such. If it were necessary to give
examples chosen from the various manifestations of the modern
spirit, there would be only too many from which to choose, begin-
ning with the ‘civic’ or ‘lay’ pseudo-rites that have developed so
extensively in the last few years, and are intended to provide the
‘masses’ with a purely human substitute for real religious rites,
down to the extravagance of a self-styled ‘naturism’, which in spite
of its name is no less artificial, not to say ‘anti-natural’, than are the
useless complications of existence against which it lays claim to
react by means of a ludicrous comedy having as its real purpose to
make people believe that the ‘state of nature’ is to be confused with
animality; meanwhile, something more than the mere comfort of
the human being is now threatened with denaturation by the
growth of the idea, so contradictory in itself but conforming well to
a democratic ‘egalitarianism’, of an ‘organization of leisure ’. 1 The
things mentioned here are intentionally only such as are known to
everyone and they undeniably belong to what may be called the
‘public domain’ and can be grasped without trouble by anyone; is it
not strange that those who feel the absurdity of all this, to say noth-
ing of its danger, are so rare as to be really exceptional? Such things
as these ought to be spoken of as ‘pseudo-religion’, ‘pseudo-nature’,
‘pseudo-comfort’, and the same is true of many other things; if one
wanted always to speak strictly according to truth, the word
‘pseudo’ would continually have to be put in front of the name of all

1. It is opportune to add that this ‘organization of leisure’ is an integral part of
the efforts referred to earlier, such as are intended to oblige men to live ‘in com-
mon’ as far as possible.

200 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

the products of the modern world, including that of profane science
itself— for it is only a ‘pseudo-science’ or imitation of knowledge --
in order to give a true indication of what it all amounts to: falsifica-
tions and nothing else, and falsifications of which the objective is
only too clear to anyone still capable of reflection.

So much for that; and now let us return to considerations of a
more general kind. What is it that makes this counterfeit possible,
and even increasingly possible and increasingly perfect of its kind, if
indeed any such words can be used in such a connection, as the
descending course of the cycle proceeds? The profound reason lies
in the relation of inverse analogy that exists, as explained, between
the highest and the lowest points: it is this that makes possible in
particular, and in a degree corresponding to that of the approach to
the domain of pure quantity, the realization of those sorts of coun-
terfeits of principial unity as are manifested in the ‘uniformity’ and
‘simplicity’ toward which the modern spirit tends, and in which its
efforts to bring everything down to the quantitative point of view
are most completely expressed. This perhaps shows more clearly
than anything else that deviation has, so to speak, only to be devel-
oped and allowed to pursue its course to the end in order finally to
lead to subversion properly so called, for when that which is most
inferior (it being in this case a question of something inferior even
to all possible existence) seeks to imitate and make a counterfeit of
superior and transcendent principles, then is the time when real
subversion can justly be spoken of. Nevertheless it is as well to recall
that in the nature of things the tendency to pure quantity can never
produce its full effect; therefore, in order that subversion may reach
its term the intervention of something else is necessary. At this stage
what was said earlier on the subject of dissolution could be
repeated, but from a slightly different point of view; obviously that
which appertains to the final point of cyclic manifestation is equally
concerned in both cases; and that is exactly why the ‘rectification of
the ultimate instant must appear precisely as a reversal of all things,
when it is seen in relation to the state of subversion existing imme-
diately before that instant.

Bearing in mind this last point, this much more can be said: the
first of the two phases that have been distinguished in anti-tradi-
tional action represents simply a work of deviation, the particular

DEVIATION AND SUBVERSION 201

end of which is a materialism of the crudest and most complete
kind; as for the second phase, it could be specially characterized as a
work of subversion (for that is the point to which it leads most
directly) destined to end in the setting-up of what has been called
an inverted spirituality, as will be seen more clearly from what fol-
lows. The inferior subtle forces that are called in during this second
phase can certainly be described as ‘subversive’ from every point of
view; and it was considered right to apply the word ‘subversion
above to the ‘inverted’ utilization of the remains of ancient tradi-
tions abandoned by the ‘spirit’; and the two cases are in any case
similar, for under such conditions corrupt vestiges themselves nec-
essarily fall into the lower regions of the subtle domain. Another
particularly clear example of the work of subversion will be given in
the next chapter, in the form of the intentional inversion of the
legitimate and normal meaning of traditional symbols; this will
afford in addition an opportunity to give a fuller explanation of the
double meaning usually contained in symbols themselves; for so
many references to double meanings of this kind have already been
made in the course of this study that a little more detail on the sub-
ject will not be out of place.

30

THE INVERSION
OF SYMBOLS

Surprise is sometimes expressed at the fact that one and the
same symbol can be taken in two senses, which are, at least appar-
ently, directly contrary one to the other. This question is not merely
one of the multiplicity of meanings that can, generally speaking, be
carried by any symbol according to the point of view or the level
from which it is considered, any kind of ‘systematization’ of sym-
bols being made impossible by this very adaptability, but is a ques-
tion more particularly of two aspects linked together through a
mutual correlation, taking the form of an opposition, in such a way
that one is so to speak the reverse or the ‘negative’ of the other. In
order to understand this, duality must in the first place be consid-
ered as presupposed by all manifestation, and consequently as con-
ditioning manifestation in all its modes, and it must always be
traceable therein in one form or another ; 1 it is true that any such
duality is in truth a complementarism and not an opposition; but
two terms that are really complementary can appear from a rela-
tively exterior or contingent point of view to be opposed . 2 All oppo-
sition only exists as such at a certain level, for there can be no such

1. As it is one of the linguistic errors that are of common occurrence and are
not without serious inconveniences, it may be useful to state clearly here that ‘dual-
ity’ and ‘dualism’ are two quite different things: dualism (of which the Cartesian
conception of ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’ is among the best known examples) properly
consists in regarding a duality as irreducible and in taking account of nothing
beyond it, thereby denying the common principle from which the two terms of the
duality really proceed by ‘polarization’.

2. See The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 7.

THE INVERSION OF SYMBOLS 203

thing as an irreducible opposition; at a higher level it is always
resolved into a complementarism, in which its two terms are found
to be reconciled and harmonized, until they return at last into the
unity of the common principle from which they both proceed. It
can therefore be said that the point of view of complementarism is
in a certain sense intermediate between that of opposition and that
of unification; and each of these points of view has its good reason
and its own value in the order to which it applies, although the
three are obviously not situated at the same level of reality; what
matters therefore is to know how to put each aspect into its proper
hierarchical place, and not to try to carry it over into a domain in
which it would no longer have any valid significance.

That being so, it is understandable that there is nothing in any
way illegitimate in taking account of two contrary aspects in a sym-
bol, and in addition that the consideration of either of these aspects
in no way excludes the other, since each of them is equally true in a
particular relation, and lastly even that by virtue of their correlation
their existence is a single existence. It is therefore a mistake, and
incidentally rather a common one, to suppose that the special con-
sideration of one aspect or the other must be peculiar to doctrines
or to schools that are themselves in opposition . 3 In such cases
everything depends solely on the predominance that may be
assigned to one or the other, and sometimes also on the intention
with which the symbol is used, for example as an element taking
part in particular rites, or again as a means of recognition for the
members of particular organizations; but this is a point to which we
shall return. The fact that the two aspects may be united in one and
the same complex symbolical figuration shows clearly that they are
not mutually exclusive and can be considered simultaneously; and
in this connection it will be well to note, although there can be no
question of developing the subject fully, that a duality, which can be
an opposition or a complementarism according to the point of view
adopted, can be arranged, so far as the relative situation of its terms

3. Attention has been drawn elsewhere to a mistake of this kind in connection
with the representation of the swastika with its arms turned so as to indicate oppo-
site directions of rotation ( The Symbolism of the Cross , chap. 10).

204 THE reign of quantity

is concerned, either vertically or horizontally, this being an immedi-
ate consequence of the cross-shaped arrangement of the quaternary,
which can be resolved into two dualities, one vertical and the other
horizontal. The vertical duality can be related to the two extremities
of an axis or to the two contrary directions in which that axis may
be followed; the horizontal duality is that of two elements situated
symmetrically on either side of that same axis. As an example of the
first case the two triangles of the seal of Solomon can be cited (as
well as all other symbols of analogy disposed according to a similar
geometrical arrangement), and as an example of the second the two
serpents of the caduceus; and it will be noticed that only in the ver-
tical duality are the two terms clearly distinguished one from the
other by their reversed positions, whereas in the horizontal duality
they can appear completely similar or equivalent when considered
separately, although their significance is not really any less contrary
in this case than in the other. It can also be said that in the spatial
order the vertical duality is that of up and down, and the horizontal
that of right and left; though this observation may perhaps seem
rather too obvious, it nonetheless has its importance, because sym-
bolically (and this leads back to the intrinsically qualitative value of
the directions of space) these two pairs of terms are themselves sus-
ceptible of multiple applications, traces of which could without
difficulty be found even in current language, showing that matters
of very general application are here in question.

So much being established in principle, certain consequences
may easily be deduced in connection with what could be called the
practical use of symbols; but here a consideration of a more special
kind must first be introduced, namely, that of the case in which the
two contrary aspects are taken as ‘benefic’ and ‘malefic’ respectively.
It must be made clear that these two terms are used for want of any
better, as on a previous occasion; they have in fact the disadvantage
of leading to a supposition that some more or less ‘moral’ interpre-
tation is admitted, whereas really there is nothing of the kind, and
the words must be understood "here in a purely ‘technical’ sense.
Furthermore, it must be clearly understood that the ‘benefic’ or
‘malefic’ quality is not attached absolutely to one or the other of the
two aspects, because it appertains only to a special application which

THE INVERSION OF SYMBOLS 205

is such that all opposition, of whatever kind, could not possibly be
brought indifferently within its range, and also because this quality
would in any case necessarily disappear when the point of view of
opposition is replaced by that of complementarism, to which any
such consideration is wholly strange. Within these limits and after
taking account of these reservations, the point of view of ‘benefi-
cence’ or ‘maleficence’ has its normal place among all others; but it
is also from this very point of view, or rather from the misuses to
which it leads, that the subversion of the interpretation and use of
symbolism now to be referred to may arise, a subversion constitut-
ing one of the ‘marks’ characteristic of everything that is derived,
consciously or otherwise, from the domain of the ‘counter-initia-
tion’, or is more or less directly subject to its influence.

This kind of subversion may consist either in attributing to the
‘malefic’ aspect, while continuing to recognize it as such, the place
that normally belongs to the ‘benefic’ aspect, even to the point of
giving it a sort of supremacy over the latter, or alternatively in
attributing to symbols a meaning opposite to their legitimate mean-
ing, by treating as ‘benefic’ the aspect that is really ‘malefic’, or the
other way round. It must also be noted that, in accordance with
what was said above, a subversion of this kind may not appear visi-
bly in the representation of the symbols, because there are some in
which the two contrary aspects are not marked by any outward
difference recognizable at first sight. Thus, in the figurations related
to what is commonly but very improperly called ‘serpent-worship’,
it would often be impossible, at least if only the serpent itself were
considered, to say a priori whether the Agathodaimon or the Kako-
daimon is symbolized; hence many misunderstandings arise, espe-
cially on the part of those who are ignorant of the dual significance
of the serpent and are tempted to see in it everywhere and always
only a ‘malefic’ symbol, as has been in fact the case for a long time
past with the generality of Westerners ; 4 and what has been said of
the serpent could equally well be applied to many other symbolical
animals, for it has become a habit for one reason or another no

4. For the same reason the Far-Eastern Dragon itself, really a symbol of the
Word, has often been taken by Western ignorance to be a ‘diabolical’ symbol.

206 the reign of quantity

longer to consider more than one of the two opposed aspects in
reality borne by these animals. In the case of symbols that can be
made to take up two opposite positions, and especially those that
are reduced to geometrical forms, it might be thought that the
difference ought to be much more clearly apparent; nevertheless it is
not always so, because the two positions of the same symbol are
each capable of carrying a legitimate meaning, also because their
relation is not necessarily that of ‘beneficence’ and ‘maleficence’, for,
let it be said once more, that relation is only a particular application
among all others. What it is important to know in such a case is
whether there can be said to be a real intention to ‘invert’ in such a
way as formally to contradict the normal and legitimate value of the
symbol; that is why, for example, the use of the inverted triangle is
very far from being always a sign of ‘black magic’ as some people
think , 5 although it certainly is so in some cases, namely, whenever it
is accompanied by an intention to adopt an attitude opposed to
what the triangle represents when its apex is turned upward. Inci-
dentally, it may be remarked that an intentional ‘inversion’ of this
kind can also be applied to words or to formulas, in such a way as to
form various sorts of reversed mantras, as may be seen in certain of
the practices of sorcery, even in the simple ‘country witchcraft’ such
as still exists in the West.

Thus it can be seen that the question of the inversion of symbols
is rather complicated, and it might well also be described as rather
delicate; for in order to know what the real position is in any partic-
ular case it is necessary to examine, not so much the figurations seen
in what may be called their ‘materiality’, as the accompanying inter-
pretations which express the intention that dictated their adoption.
And furthermore, the cleverest and most dangerous subversion is
not the one that betrays itself by too obvious singularities easily
noticed by anyone, but it is the one that deforms the meaning of
symbols or reverses their import while making no change in their
outward appearance. But the most diabolical trick of all is perhaps
that which consists in attributing to the orthodox symbolism itself,

5. Instances can even be found in which the inverted triangles occurring among
the alchemical symbols of the elements have been interpreted in that sense.

THE INVERSION OF SYMBOLS 20 7

as it exists in truly traditional organizations and more especially in
initiatic organizations (the latter being specially liable to attack in
this case), the inverted interpretation that is specifically characteris-
tic of the ‘counter-initiation’; and the ‘counter-initiation’ does not
fail to take advantage of this method of promoting confusions and
uncertainties when it can derive some profit from them. This is
really the whole secret of certain campaigns, very significant in view
of the character of the present period, conducted either against eso-
terism in general or against any one initiatic form in particular, with
the unconscious help of people who would be very astonished, and
even appalled, if they could become aware of the use that is being
made of them; unfortunately however it sometimes so happens that
people who imagine that they are fighting the devil, whatever their
particular notion of the devil may be, are thus turned, without the
least suspicion of the fact on their part, into his best servants!

31

TRADITION

AND TRADITIONALISM

The falsification of everything has been shown to be one of the
characteristic features of our period, but falsification is not in itself
subversion properly so called, though contributing fairly directly to
the preparation for it. Perhaps the clearest indication of this is what
may be called the falsification of language, taking the form of the
misuse of certain words that have been diverted from their true
meaning; misuse of this kind is to some extent imposed by constant
suggestion on the part of everyone who exercises any kind of infl-
uence over the mentality of the public. It is a case of something more
than the mere degeneration alluded to earlier, whereby many words
have come to lose their original qualitative meaning, keeping only
one that is purely quantitative; it is more a question of a ‘diversion’,
whereby words are applied to things that they do not fit in any way,
and sometimes in a sense directly opposed to their normal meaning.
This is one of the most obvious symptoms of the intellectual confu-
sion that reigns everywhere in the present world; but it must not be
forgotten that this very confusion is willed by that which lies hidden
behind the whole modern deviation; this thought obtrudes itself
particularly in view of the simultaneous appearance in many differ-
ent quarters of attempts to make illegitimate use of the very idea of
‘tradition’ by people who want improperly to assimilate its signifi-
cance to their own conceptions in' one domain or another. Of course
there is no question of suspecting the good faith of any particular
party, for very often it may be a case of mere incomprehension and
nothing more, the ignorance of most of our contemporaries about

TRADITION AND TRADITIONALISM 209

anything possessing a truly traditional character being so complete
that this need cause no surprise. Nevertheless it must also be recog-
nized that such errors of interpretation and involuntary misconcep-
tions serve the purpose of certain ‘plans’ so well that it is permissible
to wonder whether their growing diffusion may not be due to some
of the ‘suggestions’ that dominate the modern mentality, all of
which lead ultimately to nothing less than the destruction of all that
is tradition in the true sense of the word.

The modern mentality itself, in everything that characterizes it
specifically as such (and this must be said once more, for it is some-
thing that cannot be too often insisted on), is no more than the
product of a vast collective suggestion, which has operated continu-
ously for several centuries and has determined the formation and
progressive development of the anti-traditional spirit; and in that
spirit the whole of the distinctive features of the modern mentality
are comprised. Nevertheless, however powerful and clever the sug-
gestion may be, a moment may always come when the resulting
state of disorder and disequilibrium becomes so apparent that some
cannot fail to become aware of it, and then there is a risk of a ‘reac-
tion’ that might compromise the desired result. It certainly seems
that matters have today just reached that stage, and it is noticeable
that this moment coincides exactly, by a sort of ‘immanent logic’,
with the moment at which the merely negative phase of the modern
deviation comes to an end, the phase represented by the complete
and unrivaled domination of the materialistic mentality. This is
where the falsification of the traditional idea comes in with great
effect; it is made possible by the ignorance already mentioned, itself
but one of the products of the negative phase; the very idea of tradi-
tion has been destroyed to such an extent that those who aspire to
recover it no longer know which way to turn, and are only too ready
to accept all the false ideas presented to them in its place and under
its name. Such people may have become aware, at least up to a
point, that they had been deceived by openly anti-traditional sug-
gestions, and that the beliefs imposed on them represented only
error and deceit; that is certainly a change in the direction of the
reaction’ alluded to, but no effective result could accrue if nothing
further were to happen. This is clear enough from the growing

210 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

quantity of literature containing the most pertinent criticisms of
our present civilization, but contemplating measures for the cure of
the evils so rightly denounced that are, as indicated earlier, curi-
ously disproportionate and insignificant, and often more or less
infantile: such proposals can be said to be ‘scholarly’ or ‘academic’
and nothing more, and there is anyhow nothing in them that gives
evidence of the least knowledge of a profound order. This is the
stage at which the effort made, however praiseworthy and meritori-
ous it may be, can easily allow itself to be turned aside toward activ-
ities that will, in their own way and despite appearances, only
contribute in the end to the further growth of the disorder and con-
fusion of the ‘civilization’, the rectification of which they were
intended to bring about.

The people just referred to are such as can properly be described
as ‘traditionalists’, meaning people who only have a sort of tendency
or aspiration toward tradition without really knowing anything at
all about it; this is the measure of the distance dividing the ‘tradi-
tionalist’ spirit from the truly traditional spirit, for the latter implies
a real knowledge, being indeed in a sense the same as that knowl-
edge. In short, the ‘traditionalist’ is and can be no more than a mere
‘seeker’, and that is why he is always in danger of going astray, not
being in possession of the principles that alone could provide him
with infallible guidance; and his danger is all the greater because he
will find in his path, like so many ambushes, all the false ideas set on
foot by the power of illusion, which has a keen interest in prevent-
ing him from reaching the true goal of his search. It is indeed evi-
dent that this power can only maintain itself and continue to
exercise its action on condition that all restoration of the traditional
idea is made impossible, and more than ever so when it is preparing
to take a further step in the direction of subversion, subversion
being, as explained, the second phase of its action. So it is quite as
important for the power in question to divert searchings tending
toward traditional knowledge as it is to divert those concerned with
the origins or real causes of the ntodern deviation, and thus liable to
reveal something of the true nature of the said power and the means
of its influence; these two devices are both necessary and in a sense
complementary, and they could fairly be regarded as the positive

TRADITION AND TRADITIONALISM 211

and negative aspects of a single plan of action having domination as
its objective.

All misuses of the word ‘tradition’ can serve this same purpose in
one way or another, beginning with the most popular of all,
whereby it is made synonymous with ‘custom’ or ‘usage’, thus bring-
ing about a confusion of tradition with things that are on the lower
human level and are completely lacking in profound significance.
But there are other and more subtle deformations, all the more dan-
gerous because of their subtlety, that share the common character-
istic of bringing the idea of tradition down to a purely human level,
whereas on the contrary there is nothing and can be nothing truly
traditional that does not contain some element of a supra-human
order. This indeed is the essential point, containing as it were the
very definition of tradition and all that appertains to it; this is also
therefore the very point that must on no account be allowed to
emerge if the modern mentality is to be maintained in its state of
delusion, and still more if it is to have yet other delusions imposed
on it, such as will not only suppress any tendency toward a restora-
tion of the supra-human, but will also direct the modern mentality
more effectively toward the worst modalities of the infra-human.
Moreover, in order to become aware of the importance assigned to
the negation of the supra-human by the conscious and unconscious
agents of the modern deviation, it is enough to observe how all who
lay claim to be ‘historians’ of religion and of other forms of the tra-
dition (and in any case they usually mix all these forms together
under the general title of ‘religion’) are eager above all to explain
everything in terms of exclusively human factors; it matters little
whether, according to school of thought, these factors are psycho-
logical, social, or anything else, the very multiplicity of the different
explanations facilitating the seduction of a greater number; com-
mon to all is the well-defined desire to reduce everything to the
human level and to retain nothing that surpasses it; and those who
believe in the value of this destructive ‘criticism’ are thenceforth
very ready to confuse tradition with anything whatever, since there
is nothing in the ideas inculcated into them such as might enable
tradition to be distinguished from that which is wholly lacking in
traditional character.

212 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

Granted that nothing that is of a purely human order can for that
very reason legitimately be called ‘traditional’, there cannot possibly
be, for instance, a ‘philosophical tradition’ or a ‘scientific tradition’
in the modern and profane sense of the words, any more, of course,
than there can be a ‘political tradition’, at least where all traditional
social organization is lacking, as is the case in the modern Western
world. Such expressions are nevertheless in common use today, each
in its way denaturing the idea of tradition; and it is obvious that if
the ‘traditionalists’ referred to above can be persuaded to allow their
activity to be turned aside toward one or another of these domains
and to confine their activity to it, their aspirations will be ‘neutral-
ized’ and rendered perfectly harmless, and may even sometimes be
used without their knowledge for a purpose exactly contrary to
what they intend. Indeed it sometimes happens that people go so far
as to apply the word ‘tradition’ to things that by their very nature are
as directly anti-traditional as possible: thus they talk about a
‘humanist tradition’, and a ‘national tradition’, despite the fact that
humanism is nothing if not an explicit denial of the supra-human,
and the formation of ‘nationalities’ was the means employed for the
destruction of the traditional civilization of the Middle Ages. In the
circumstances it would not be surprising if people began one day to
talk about a ‘protestant tradition’ or even a ‘lay tradition’ or a ‘revo-
lutionary tradition’ or if the materialists themselves ended by pro-
claiming themselves the defenders of a ‘tradition’, if only in their
capacity as the representatives of something already belonging in a
great measure to the past! Most of our contemporaries have reached
such a state of mental confusion that associations of the most mani-
festly contradictory words bring about no reaction on their part and
do not even provide them with food for thought.

This leads at once to another important observation: when a few
people have become conscious of the disorder of these days owing
to the all too obvious effects of its present stage of development
(more particularly since the stage corresponding to a maximum
of ‘solidification’ has been left behind), and when these people try
to ‘react’ in one way or another, the best means for making their
desire for ‘reaction’ ineffective is surely to direct it toward one of the
earlier and less ‘advanced’ stages of the same deviation, some stage

TRADITION AND TRA DITIONALISM 213

in which disorder had not yet become so apparent, and was as it
were presented under an outward aspect more acceptable to anyone
not yet completely blinded by certain suggestions. Anyone who
considers himself a ‘traditionalist’ must normally declare himself
‘anti-modern’, but he may not be any the less affected, though he be
unaware of the fact, by modern ideas in a more or less attenuated
form; they are then less easily detected, but they always correspond
in fact to one or another of the stages passed through by these same
ideas in the course of their development; no concession, even
unconscious or involuntary, is admissible on this point, for from
the very beginning up to the present day, and beyond that too,
everything holds together and is inexorably interlinked. In that con-
nection, this much more must be said: the work that has as its
object to prevent all ‘reaction’ from aiming at anything further back
than a return to a lesser disorder, while at the same time concealing
the character of the lesser disorder so that it may pass as ‘order’, fits
in very exactly with the other work carried out with a view to secur-
ing the penetration of the modern spirit into the interior of what-
ever is left of traditional organizations of any kind in the West; the
same ‘neutralizing’ effect on forces of which the opposition might
become formidable is obtained in both cases. Moreover, something
more than mere ‘neutralization’ is involved, for a struggle must nec-
essarily take place between the elements thus brought together as it
were on the same level and on the same ground, and their recipro-
cal enmity is therefore no more than an enmity between the various
and apparently opposed productions of one and the same modern
deviation; thus the final result can only be a fresh increase in disor-
der and confusion, which simply amounts to one more step toward
final dissolution.

As between all the more or less incoherent things that are today
in constant agitation and mutual collision, as between all external
‘movements’ of whatever kind they may be, there is no occasion to
take sides’, to use the common expression, whether from a tradi-
tional or from a merely ‘traditionalist’ point of view, for to do so is
to become a dupe. Since the same influences are really operating
behind all these things, it is really playing their game to join in the
struggles promoted and directed by them; therefore the mere fact of

214 THE reign of quantity

‘taking sides’ under such conditions is necessarily to adopt, however
unwittingly, a truly anti-traditional attitude. No particular applica-
tions need be specified here, but it must at least be made clear in a
general way that in all this agitation principles are always and every-
where lacking, despite the fact that ‘principles’ have surely never
been so much talked about as they are today on all sides, the word
being commonly applied more or less regardlessly to things that are
least worthy of it, and sometimes even to things that imply the
negation of all true principle. This particular misuse of a word is
again highly significant of the real trend of the falsification of lan-
guage already well exemplified by the perversion of the word ‘tradi-
tion’; that example has been specially stressed because it is most
closely connected with the subject of this study, insofar as the latter
is intended to give a picture of the last phases of the cyclical
‘descent’. It is not in fact possible to stop short at the point that rep-
resents most nearly the apogee of the ‘reign of quantity’, for what
follows that point is too closely connected with what precedes it to
allow of any separation being made otherwise than quite artificially;
no ‘abstractions’ are therefore admitted here, for they only represent
a particular form of the ‘simplification’ so dear to the modern men-
tality; on the contrary, the object is as far as possible to present real-
ity as it is, without omitting anything that is essential for the
understanding of the conditions of the present period.

32

NEO-SPIRITUALISM

In the previous chapter there was occasion to refer to people
who would like to react against the existing disorder, but have not
the knowledge necessary to enable them to do so effectively, and so
are ‘neutralized’ in one way or another and directed into blind
alleys; but in addition to these people there are also others who are
only too easily driven yet further along the road leading to subver-
sion. The pretext put before the latter, as things are at present, is
most often that of ‘fighting materialism’, and no doubt most of
them believe sincerely that they are doing so; but people in the first-
named category who want to live up to this belief merely end up in
the dreariness of a vague ‘spiritualist’ philosophy that is without any
real significance but is at least relatively harmless, whereas those in
the second category are moving toward the domain of the worst
psychic delusions, and that is far more dangerous. The former are
indeed all more or less affected unknowingly by the modern spirit,
but not deeply enough to be entirely blinded by it, but it is the latter
whom we must now consider, and they are wholly penetrated by it,
and moreover they usually glory in their ‘modernity’; the only thing
that horrifies them among all the various manifestations of the
modern spirit is materialism, and they are so fascinated by this one
idea that they do not see that many other things, such as the science
and the industry they admire, are closely dependent, both in their
origin and in their intrinsic nature, on the very materialism that so
distresses them. This makes it easy to see why the sort of attitude
they display must now be encouraged and spread: such people are
the best unconscious auxiliaries it would be possible to find for the
second phase of anti- traditional action. Materialism has nearly
played its part, and these are the people to spread its successor about

216 the reign of quantity

the world: they will even be used to assist actively in opening the
‘fissures’ spoken of earlier, for in this domain it is not merely ‘ideas’
or theories of one sort or another that count, but also and simulta-
neously a ‘practice’ that will bring them into direct relations with
subtle forces of the lowest order; and they lend themselves all the
more readily to this work owing to their total ignorance of the true
nature of such forces, to which they go so far as to attribute a ‘spiri-
tual’ character.

This is what has in a general way been described as ‘neo-spiritual-
ism’, to distinguish it from mere philosophical ‘spiritualism’; it
might be sufficient only to mention it here for the purpose of ‘put-
ting it on record’, since two earlier studies have been specially
devoted to its most widespread forms , 1 but it is too important an
element among those that are specially characteristic of the contem-
porary period to justify the omission of some mention at least of its
main features, keeping back for the moment the ‘pseudo-initiatic’
aspect of the work of most of the schools attached to it (with the
exception of the spiritualist schools that are openly profane and
must be so owing to the exigencies of their extreme ‘populariza-
tion’), for that is a matter that will have to be returned to later. First
of all it should be noted that there is no question of a homogenous
whole, but of something that assumes a multitude of different
forms, though they always show enough common characteristics to
admit of being legitimately grouped together under one designa-
tion; it is therefore all the more strange that all such groups, schools,
and ‘movements’ are constantly in a state of rivalry or even of con-
flict one with another, to such an extent that it would be difficult to
find elsewhere, except perhaps between political ‘parties’, hatreds
more violent than those that exist between their adherents, while all
the time, by a curious irony, they all have a mania for preaching ‘fra-
ternity’ in season and out of season! Here is a truly ‘chaotic’ phe-
nomenon, which may give the impression even to superficial
observers of disorder carried to an extreme: it is indeed an indica-
tion that ‘neo-spiritualism’ already represents a fairly advanced
stage on the road to dissolution.

1 . The Spiritist Fallacy and Theosophy. History of a Pseudo- Religion.

NEO-SPIRITUALISM 217

On the other hand, in spite of the aversion it evinces toward
materialism, ‘neo-spiritualism’ resembles it in more than one way,
so much so that it has been referred to not unjustly as ‘transposed
materialism’, meaning materialism extended beyond the limits of
the corporeal world, this being clearly exemplified by the crude rep-
resentations of the subtle world, wrongly called ‘spiritual’, already
alluded to and consisting almost entirely of images borrowed from
the corporeal domain. This same ‘neo-spiritualism’ is also attached
to the earlier stages of the modern deviation, in a more effective way,
through what may be called its ‘scientistic’ side; that too has been
previously alluded to when dealing with the influence exerted on the
various schools from the moment of their birth by scientific
‘mythology’; and it is worthwhile to note more especially the impor-
tant part played in these conceptions, in quite a general way and
without any exception, by ‘progressivist’ and ‘evolutionary’ ideas,
which are indeed among the most typical features of the modern
mentality, and would suffice by themselves to characterize any con-
ceptions as being beyond all doubt the products of that mentality.
Moreover, even the schools that affect an appearance of ‘archaism’
by making use in their own way of fragments of uncomprehended
and deformed traditional ideas, or by disguising modern ideas as
they think fit under a vocabulary borrowed from some traditional
form either Eastern or Western (all of which things, by the way, are
in formal contradiction to their belief in ‘progress’ and ‘evolution’),
are constantly preoccupied in adapting these ancient ideas, or what
are imagined to be such, to the theories of modern science. This
work has of course continually to be done afresh as the scientific
theories change, though it is true that those who undertake it find
their task simplified by their almost universal reliance on material
drawn from works of ‘popularization’.

Apart from this, ‘neo-spiritualism’ is also, on the side alluded to
above as ‘practical’, closely in conformity with the ‘experimental’
tendencies of the modern mentality. In this way it has gradually
come to exert an appreciable influence on science itself, into which
it has more or less insinuated itself by means of what is called
‘metapsychics’. Doubtless the phenomena considered in ‘metapsy-
chics’ are in themselves just as worthy of study as are those of the

218 the reign of quantity

corporeal world; but what gives rise to objection is the way in which
the study is undertaken, that is, the application to it of the point of
view of profane science; physicists (who are so obstinate in sticking
to their quantitative methods as to want to try to ‘weigh the soul’!)
and even psychologists in the ‘official’ sense of the word, are surely
as ill-prepared as possible for a study of this kind, and for that very
reason more liable than anyone else to allow themselves to be
deluded in every way . 2 And there is something more: in actual fact
‘metapsychic’ researches are scarcely ever undertaken indepen-
dently of all support from ‘neo-spiritualists’, and especially from
‘spiritists’, and this proves that these people fully intend that the
researches shall serve the purposes of their propaganda. Perhaps the
most serious thing in this connection is that the experimenters are
so placed that they find themselves obliged to have recourse to
spirit ‘mediums’, that is, to individuals whose preconceived ideas
markedly modify the phenomena in question, and give them what
might be called a special ‘coloring’, and who moreover have been
drilled with particular care (for there are even ‘schools for medi-
ums’) so as to serve as instruments and passive ‘supports’ to certain
influences belonging to the lowest depths of the subtle world; and
they act as ‘vehicles’ of these influences wherever they go, so that
nobody, scientist or otherwise, can fail to be dangerously affected if
he comes into contact with them and if he is, through ignorance of
what lies behind it all, totally incapable of defending himself. Fur-
ther insistence on this aspect of affairs is unnecessary, because it has
been fully dealt with in other works, to which anyone who would
like to have a fuller account of them may now be referred; but it is
worthwhile, because it is something entirely peculiar to the present
day, to underline the strangeness of the part played by the ‘medi-
ums’ and of the supposed necessity of their presence for the pro-
duction of phenomena arising in the subtle world. Why was there
nothing of that kind formerly, for forces of that order were in no

2. It is a question here, not so much of the more or less important part to be
assigned to fraud, conscious or unconscious, but also of delusions as to the nature
of the forces that intervene in the actual production of the phenomena called
‘metapsychic’.

NEO-SPIRITUALISM 219

way prevented by that fact from manifesting themselves spontane-
ously in certain circumstances, and on a far larger scale than in
spiritist or ‘metapsychic’ seances (and very often in uninhabited
houses or in desert places, whereby the too convenient hypothesis
of the presence of a medium unconscious of his own powers is
excluded)? It may be wondered whether some change has not come
about, since the appearance of spiritualism, in the very manner in
which the subtle world acts in its ‘interferences’ with the corporeal
world: such a change would only be a fresh example of modifica-
tions in the environment such as has already been considered in
connection with the effects of materialism; but the one thing certain
in any case is that there is something here that fits in perfectly with
the exigencies of a ‘control’ exerted over inferior psychic influences,
themselves already essentially ‘malefic’, in order that they may be
used more directly with certain defined ends in view, in conformity
with the pre-established ‘plan’ of the work of subversion, for which
purpose they are now being ‘unchained’ in our world.

33

CONTEMPORARY

INTUITIONISM

In the domain of philosophy and psychology, the tenden-
cies corresponding to the second phase of anti-traditional action
are naturally marked by the importance assigned to the ‘subcon-
scious’ in all its forms, in other words to the most inferior psychic
elements of the human being, something particularly apparent so
far as philosophy properly so called is concerned in the theories of
William lames as well as in the ‘intuitionism’ of Bergson. The work
of Bergson has been considered in an earlier chapter, in relation to
the justifiable criticisms of rationalism and its consequences formu-
lated therein, though never very clearly and often in equivocal
terms; but the characteristic feature of what may be called (if the
term be admissible) the ‘positive’ part of his philosophy is that,
instead of seeking above reason for something that might remedy its
insufficiencies, he takes the opposite course and seeks beneath it;
thus, instead of turning toward true intellectual intuition, of which
he is as completely ignorant as are the rationalists, he appeals to an
imagined ‘intuition’ of an exclusively sensitive and ‘vital’ order, and
in the very confused notions that emerge the intuition of the senses
properly so called is mingled with the most obscure forces of
instinct and sentiment. So it is not as a result of a more or less ‘for-
tuitous’ encounter that Bergson’s ‘intuitionism’ has manifest affini-
ties, particularly marked in what may be called its ‘final state’ (and
this applies equally to the philosophy of William James), with ‘neo-
spiritualism’, but it is as a result of the fact that both are expressions
of the same tendencies: the attitude of the one in relation to ratio-
nalism is more or less parallel to that of the other in relation to

CONTEMPORARY INTUITIONISM 221

materialism, the one leaning toward the ‘sub-rational’ just as the
other leans toward the ‘sub-corporeal’ (doubtless no less uncon-
sciously), so that the direction followed in both cases is undoubt-
edly toward the ‘infra-human’.

This is not the place for a detailed examination of these theories,
but attention must at least be called to certain features closely con-
nected with the subject of this book. The first is their ‘evolutionism’,
which remains unbroken and is carried to an extreme, for all reality
is placed exclusively within ‘becoming’, involving the formal denial
of all immutable principle, and consequently of all metaphysics;
hence their ‘fleeting’ and inconsistent quality, which really affords,
in contrast with the rationalist and materialist ‘solidification’,
something like a prefiguration of the dissolution of all things in the
final chaos. A significant example is found in Bergson’s view of reli-
gion, which is set out appropriately enough in a work of his exem-
plifying the ‘final state’ mentioned above . 1 Not that there is really
anything new in that work, for the origins of the thesis maintained
are in fact very simple: in this field all modern theories have as a
common feature the desire to bring religion down to a purely
human level, which amounts to denying it, consciously or other-
wise, since it really represents a refusal to take account of what is its
very essence; and Bergson’s conception does not differ from the oth-
ers in that respect.

These theories of religion, taken as a whole, can be grouped into
two main types: one is ‘psychological’ and claims to explain religion
by the nature of the human individual, and the other is ‘sociologi-
cal’ and tries to see in religion a fact of an exclusively social kind, the
product of a sort of ‘collective consciousness’ imagined as dominat-
ing individuals and imposing itself on them. Bergson’s originality
consists only in having tried to combine these two sorts of explana-
tion, and he does so in rather a curious way: instead of considering
them as more or less mutually exclusive, as do most of the partisans
of one or the other, he accepts both explanations, but relates them
to two different things, each called by the same name of ‘religion’,
the ‘two sources’ of religion postulated by him really amounting to

1 . The Two Sources of Morality and Religion.

222 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

that and nothing more . 2 For him therefore there are two sorts of
religion, one ‘static’ and the other ‘dynamic’, alternatively and
somewhat oddly called by him ‘closed religion’ and ‘open religion’;
the first is social in its nature and the second psychological; and nat-
urally his preference is for the second, which he regards as the supe-
rior form of religion— we say ‘naturally’ because it is very evident
that it could not be otherwise in a ‘philosophy of becoming’ such as
his, since from that point of view whatever does not change does
not correspond to anything real, and even prevents man from
grasping the real such as it is imagined to be. But someone will say
that a philosophy of this kind, since it admits of no ‘eternal truths ’, 3
must logically refuse all value not only to metaphysics but also to
religion; and that is exactly what happens, for religion in the true
sense of the word is just what Bergson calls ‘static religion’, in which
he chooses to see nothing but a wholly imaginary ‘story-telling’; as
for his ‘dynamic religion’, the truth is that it is not religion at all.

His so-called ‘dynamic religion’ in fact contains none of the char-
acteristic elements that go to make up the definition of religion:
there are no dogmas, since they are immutable or, as Bergson says,
‘fixed’; no more, of course, are there any rites, for the same reason
and because of their social character, dogmas and rites necessarily
being left to ‘static religion’; and as for morality, Bergson starts by
setting it aside as something quite outside religion as he under-
stands it. So there is nothing left, or at least nothing is left but a
vague ‘religiosity’, a sort of confused aspiration toward an ‘ideal’ of
some description, rather near to the aspirations of modernists and
liberal Protestants, and reminiscent in many respects of the ‘reli-
gious experience’ of William James, for all these things are obviously
very closely connected. This ‘religiosity’ is taken by Bergson to be a
superior kind of religion, for he thinks, like all those who follow the
same tendencies, that he is ‘sublimating’ religion, whereas all he is

2. So far as morality is concerned, it is not of special interest here, but the expla-
nation of it proposed by Bergson is of course parallel to his explanation of religion.

3. It is worthy of note that Bergson seems to avoid the use of the word ‘truth,
and that he almost always uses instead the word ‘reality’, a word that in his view sig-
nifies that which undergoes continual change.

CONTEMPORARY INTUITIONISM 223

doing is to empty it of all positive content, since there is nothing in
religion compatible with his conceptions. Such notions are no
doubt all that can be extracted from a psychological theory, for
experience has failed to show that any such theory can get beyond
‘religious feeling’— and that, once more, is not religion. In Bergson’s
eyes ‘dynamic religion’ finds its highest expression in ‘mysticism’,
which however he does not understand and sees on its worst side,
for he only praises it for whatever in it is ‘individual’, that is to say,
vague, inconsistent, and in a sense ‘anarchic’; and the best examples
of this kind of mysticism, though he does not quote them, could be
found in certain teachings of occultist and Theosophist inspiration.
What really pleases him about the mystics, it must be stated categor-
ically, is their tendency to ‘divagation’ in the etymological sense of
the word, which they show only too readily when left to themselves.
As for that which is the very foundation of true mysticism, leaving
aside its more or less abnormal or ‘eccentric’ deviations (which may
or may not strike one’s fancy), its attachment to a ‘static religion’ he
evidently regards as negligible; nevertheless one feels that there is
something here that worries him, for his explanations concerning it
are somewhat embarrassed; but a fuller examination of this ques-
tion would lead too far away from what for present purposes are its
essentials.

To return to ‘static religion’: so far as its supposed origins are
concerned, it will be seen that Bergson trustfully accepts all the tales
of the all too well known ‘sociological school’, including those that
are most worthy of suspicion: ‘magic’, ‘totemism’, ‘taboo’, ‘mana’,
‘animal worship’, ‘spirit worship’, and ‘primitive mentality’, nothing
being missing of the conventional jargon or of the accustomed triv-
ialities, if such expressions may be allowed (as indeed they must be
when discussing matters so grotesque in character). The only thing
for which he is perhaps really responsible is the place he assigns to a
so-called ‘fable-making function’, which seems to be much more
fabulous than that which it seeks to explain: but he had to invent
some sort of theory to allow of the comprehensive denial of the
existence of any real foundation of those things that are commonly
treated as ‘superstitions’, a ‘civilized’ philosophy, and more than
that, a ‘twentieth-century’ philosophy, evidently considering that

224 THE reign of quantity

any other attitude would be unworthy of itself. In all this there is
only one point of present interest, that concerning ‘magic’; magic is
a great resource for certain theorists, who clearly have no idea of
what it really is, but who try to find in it the origin both of religion
and of science. Bergson’s position is not precisely that: he seeks for a
‘psychological origin’ in magic, and turns it into ‘the exteriorization
of a desire that fills the heart,’ and he makes out that ‘if one recon-
stitutes by an effort of introspection the natural reaction of man to
his perception of things, one finds that magic and religion are con-
nected, and that there is nothing in common between magic and
science.’ It is true that later on he wavers: if one adopts a certain
point of view, ‘magic evidently forms part of religion,’ but from
another point of view ‘religion is opposed to magic’; he is clearer
when he asserts that ‘magic is the opposite of science’ and that ‘far
from preparing for the coming of science, as has been supposed,
magic has been the great obstacle against which methodical learn-
ing has had to contend.’ All that is almost exactly the reverse of the
truth, for magic has absolutely nothing to do with religion, and,
while admittedly not the origin of all the sciences, it is simply a sin-
gle science among the others; but Bergson is no doubt quite con-
vinced that no sciences can exist other than those enumerated in
modern ‘classifications’, established from the most narrowly pro-
fane point of view imaginable. Speaking of ‘magical operations’
with the imperturbable self-assurance of one who has never seen
any , 4 he writes this remarkable sentence: ‘If primitive intelligence
had begun its dealings with such matters by conceiving principles, it

4. It is most regrettable that Bergson was on bad terms with his sister, Mrs S.
S.L. MacGregor Mathers (alias ‘Soror Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum’) who might have
been able to give him a little instruction in such matters. [S.S.L MacGregor
Mathers, author of The Kabbalah Unveiled, was a leading figure in various occult
organizations in the early twentieth century, primarily in England, and is known
especially for his role in the founding of The Order of the Golden Dawn, whence
the ‘initiatic’ name given for his wife deriyes. Mrs Mathers was herself very active in
all these matters. For a time the Order of the Golden Dawn attracted a number of
figures who became well-known in later years, including William Butler Yeats (on
whom both of the Mathers exerted a strong influence for a time) and Arthur
Edward Waite. Ed.]

CONTEMPORARY INTUITIONISM 225

would soon have had to give way to experience, which would have
demonstrated their falsity.’ One can admire the intrepidity of this
philosopher, shut into his private room, and well protected against
the attacks of certain influences that undoubtedly would not hesi-
tate to take advantage of him as an auxiliary no less valuable than
unwitting, when he denies a priori everything that does not fit into
the framework of his theories. How can he think that men were stu-
pid enough to have repeated indefinitely, even without ‘principles’,
‘operations’ that were never successful, and what would he say if it
should be found, on the contrary, that experience ‘demonstrates the
falsity’ of his own assertions? Obviously he does not even imagine
the possibility of anything of that kind; such is the strength of the
preconceived ideas in him and in those like him that they do not
doubt for a single instant that the world is strictly confined within
the measure of their conceptions (this in fact being what allows
them to construct ‘systems’); and how can a philosopher be
expected to understand that he ought to refrain, just like an ordi-
nary mortal, from talking of things he knows nothing about?

Now it is particularly worthy of note, and highly significant as
regards the reality of the connection between Bergsonian ‘intuition-
ism’ and the second phase of anti-traditional action, that magic, by
an ironical turn of affairs, is now cruelly avenging the denials of our
philosopher. It has reappeared in our days, through the recent
‘fissures’ in our world, in a form that is at once the lowest and the
most rudimentary, in the disguise of ‘psychic science’ (the very
thing that some people prefer to call, rather unfortunately, ‘meta-
psychics’), and it succeeds in securing admission thereto, while
avoiding recognition not only as something very real, but also as
destined to play a leading part in the future of Bergson’s ‘dynamic
religion’! This is no exaggeration: he speaks of ‘survival’ just like any
common spiritist, and he believes in a ‘deepening of the range of
experiment’ making it possible to come to a ‘conclusion as to the
possibility and even the probability of a survival of the soul’ (what
exactly does that mean, and is it not apparent that he is thinking of
the phantasmagoria of ‘psychic corpses’?), but without the possibil-
ity of knowing whether it will be ‘for a time or for ever.’ But this last
annoying limitation does not prevent him from proclaiming in

226 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

dithyrambic tones: ‘No more than this is needed in order to turn
into a living and active reality a belief in a life after death such as is
met with in most men, though it is usually verbal, abstract,

ineffective Indeed, if we were sure, absolutely sure, of survival

we could no longer think of anything else.’ The ancient magic was
more ‘scientific’ than this, in the true sense of the word, if not in the
profane sense, and it had not the same pretensions; but in order
that some of its most elementary phenomena should give rise to
interpretations of this kind it was necessary to wait for the inven-
tion of spiritualism, which could not come to birth until a late stage
of the modern deviation had been reached. It is in fact the spiritual-
ist theory concerning such phenomena, that and nothing else, that
is finally accepted by Bergson, as it was by William James before
him, with ‘a joy’ that makes ‘all pleasures pale’ (this incredible state-
ment, with which his book ends, is quoted word for word). His ‘joy’
establishes for us the degree of discernment of which this philoso-
pher is capable, for as far as his good faith is concerned, that cer-
tainly is not in question, and profane philosophers are usually not
suited to act otherwise than as dupes in cases of this kind, thus serv-
ing as unconscious intermediaries for the hoaxing of many others:
but apart from that, talking of ‘superstition’, never before has there
been so good an example of it, and it is this fact that gives the best
idea of the real worth of all the ‘new philosophy’, as its partisans are
pleased to call it!

34

THE MISDEEDS
OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

In passing from philosophy to psychology it will be found
that identical tendencies appear once again in the latter, and in the
most recent schools of psychology they assume a far more danger-
ous aspect, for instead of taking the form of mere theoretical postu-
lates they are given practical applications of a very disturbing
character; the most ‘representative’ of these new methods, from the
point of view of the present study, are those grouped under the gen-
eral heading of ‘psychoanalysis’. It may be noted that, by a curious
inconsistency, their handling of elements indubitably belonging to
the subtle order continues to be accompanied in many psycholo-
gists by a materialistic attitude, no doubt because of their earlier
training, as well as because of their present ignorance of the true
nature of the elements they are bringing into play ; 1 is it not one of
the strangest characteristics of modern science that it never knows
exactly what the object of its studies really is, even when only the
forces of the corporeal domain are in question? It goes without say-
ing too that there is a kind of ‘laboratory psychology’, the end-
point of the process of limitation and of materialization of which

1. The case of Freud himself, founder of ‘psychoanalysis’, is quite typical in this
respect, for he never ceased to declare himself a materialist. One further remark:
why is it that the principal representatives of the new tendencies, like Einstein in
physics, Bergson in philosophy, Freud in psychology, and many others of less
importance, are almost all of Jewish origin, unless it be because there is something
involved that is closely bound up with the ‘malefic’ and dissolving aspect of nomad-
ism when it is deviated, and because that aspect must inevitably predominate in
Jews detached from their tradition?

228 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

the ‘philosophico-literary’ psychology of university teaching was
but a less advanced stage, and now no more than a sort of accessory
branch of psychology, which still continues to coexist with the new
theories and methods; to this branch apply the preceding observa-
tions on the attempts that have been made to reduce psychology
itself to a quantitative science.

There is certainly something more than a mere question of
vocabulary in the fact, very significant in itself, that present-day
psychology considers nothing but the ‘subconscious’, and never
the ‘superconscious’, which ought logically to be its correlative;
there is no doubt that this usage expresses the idea of an extension
operating only in a downward direction, that is, toward the aspect
of things that corresponds, both here in the human being and else-
where in the cosmic environment, to the ‘fissures’ through which
the most ‘malefic’ influences of the subtle world penetrate, infl-
uences having a character than can truthfully and literally be
described as ‘infernal ’. 2 There are also some who adopt the term
‘unconscious’ as a synonym or equivalent of ‘subconscious’, and
this term, taken literally, would seem to refer to an even lower level,
but as a matter of fact it only corresponds less closely to reality; if
the object of study were really unconscious it is difficult to see how
it could be spoken of at all, especially in psychological terms; and
besides, what good reason is there, other than mere materialistic
and mechanistic prejudice, for assuming that anything unconscious
really exists? However that may be, there is another thing worthy of
note, and that is the strange illusion which leads psychologists to
regard states as being more ‘profound’ when they are quite simply
more inferior; is not this already an indication of the tendency to
run counter to spirituality, which alone can be truly profound since
it alone touches the principle and the very center of the being? Cor-
respondingly, since the domain of psychology is not extended
upward, the ‘superconscious’ naturally remains as strange to it and
as cut off from it as ever; and when psychology happens to meet

2 . It may be noted in this connection that Freud put at the head of his The Inter-
pretation of Dreams the following very significant epigram: Flectere si nequeo
superos, Acheronta movebo (Virgil ,Aeneid, vii, 312).

THE MISDEEDS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 229

anything related to the ‘superconscious’, it tries to annex it merely
by assimilating it to the ‘subconscious’. This particular procedure is
almost invariably characteristic of its so-called explanations of such
things as religion and mysticism, together with certain aspects of
Eastern doctrine such as Yoga ; there are therefore features in this
confusion of the superior with the inferior that can properly be
regarded as constituting a real subversion.

It should also be noted that psychology, as well as the ‘new phi-
losophy’, tends in its appeal to the subconscious to approach more
and more closely to ‘metapsychics’; 3 and in the same way it cannot
avoid making an approach, though perhaps unwittingly (at least in
the case of those of its representatives who are determined to remain
materialists in spite of everything), to spiritualism and to other
more or less similar things, all of which rely without doubt on the
same obscure elements of a debased psychism. These same things,
of which the origin and the character are more than suspect, thus
appear in the guise of ‘precursory’ movements and as the allies of
recent psychology, which introduces the elements in question into
the contemporary purview of what is admitted to be ‘official’ sci-
ence, and although it introduces them in a roundabout way (none-
theless by an easier way than that of ‘metapsychics’, the latter being
still disputed in some quarters), it is very difficult to think that the
part psychology is called upon to play in the present state of the
world is other than one of active participation in the second phase
of anti-traditional action. In this connection, the recently men-
tioned pretensions of ordinary psychology to annex, by forcible
assimilation to the ‘subconscious’, certain things that by their very
nature elude it, only belong to what may be called the ‘childish’ side
of the affair, though they are fairly clearly subversive in tendency; for
explanations of that sort, just like the ‘sociological’ explanations of
the same things, are really of a ‘simplistic’ ingenuousness that some-
times reaches buffoonery; but in any case, that sort of thing is far
less serious, so far as its real consequences are concerned, than the

3. Incidentally it was the ‘psychist’ Myers who invented the expression ‘sublimi-
nal consciousness’ which was later replaced in the psychological vocabulary for the
sake of brevity by the word ‘subconscious’

230 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

truly ‘satanic’ side now to be examined more closely in relation to
the new psychology.

A ‘satanic’ character is revealed with particular clarity in the psy-
choanalytic interpretations of symbolism, or of what is held rightly
or wrongly to be symbolism, this last proviso being inserted because
on this point as on many others, if the details were gone into, there
would be many distinctions to make and many confusions to dissi-
pate: thus, to take only one typical example, a vision in which is
expressed some ‘supra-human’ inspiration is truly symbolic,
whereas an ordinary dream is not so, whatever the outward appear-
ances may be. Psychologists of earlier schools had of course them-
selves often tried to explain symbolism in their own way and to
bring it within the range of their own conceptions; in any such case,
if symbolism is really in question at all, explanations in terms of
purely human elements fail to recognize anything that is essential, as
indeed they do whenever affairs of a traditional order are concerned;
if on the other hand human affairs alone are really in question, then
it must be a case of false symbolism, but then the very fact of calling
it by that name reveals once more the same mistake about the
nature of true symbolism. This applies equally to the matters to
which the psychoanalysts devote their attention, but with the differ-
ence that in their case the things to be taken into consideration are
not simply human, but also to a great extent ‘infra-human’; it is then
that we come into the presence, not only of a debasement, but of a
complete subversion; and every subversion, even if it only arises, at
least in the first place, from incomprehension and ignorance (than
which nothing is better adapted for exploitation to such ends), is
always inherently ‘satanic’ in the true sense of the word. Besides this,
the generally ignoble and repulsive character of psychoanalytical
interpretations is an entirely reliable ‘mark’ in this connection; and
it is particularly significant from our point of view, as has been
shown elsewhere , 4 that this very same ‘mark’ appears again in cer-
tain spiritualist manifestations— anyone who sees in this no more
than a mere ‘coincidence’ must v surely have much good will, if
indeed he is not completely blind. In most cases the psychoanalysts

4 . See The Spiritist Fallacy, pt. 2, chap. 10.

THE MISDEEDS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 231

may well be quite as unconscious as are the spiritualists of what is
really involved in these matters; but the former no less than the lat-
ter appear to be ‘guided’ by a subversive will making use in each case
of elements that are of the same order, if not precisely identical. This
subversive will, whatever may be the beings in which it is incar-
nated, is certainly conscious enough, at least in those beings, and it
is related to intentions that are doubtless very different from any
that can be suspected by people who are only the unconscious
instruments whereby those intentions are translated into action.

Under such conditions, it is all too clear that resort to psycho-
analysis for purposes of therapy, this being the usual reason for its
employment, cannot but be extremely dangerous for those who
undergo it, and even to those who apply it, for they are concerned
with things that can never be handled with impunity; it would not
be taking an exaggerated view to see in this one of the means spe-
cially brought into play in order to increase to the greatest possible
extent the disequilibrium of the modern world and to lead it on
toward final dissolution . 5 Those who practice such methods are on
the other hand without doubt convinced of the benefits afforded by
the results they obtain; theirs is however the very delusion that
makes the diffusion of these methods possible, and it marks the real
difference subsisting between the intentions of the ‘practitioners’
and the intentions of the will that presides over the work in which
the practitioners only collaborate blindly. In fact, the only effect of
psychoanalysis must be to bring to the surface, by making it fully
conscious, the whole content of those lower depths of the being that
can properly be called the ‘sub- conscious’; moreover, the individual
concerned is already psychologically weak by hypothesis, for if he
were otherwise he would experience no need to resort to treatment
of this description; he is by so much the less able to resist ‘subver-
sion’, and he is in grave danger of foundering irremediably in the
chaos of dark forces thus imprudently let loose; even if he manages

5 . Another example of such means is furnished by the comparable employment
of ‘radiaesthesia’, for in this case also psychic elements of the same quality very
often come into play, though it must be admitted that they do not appear under the
‘hideous’ aspect that is so conspicuous in psychoanalysis.

232 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

in spite of everything to escape, he will at least retain throughout the
rest of his life an imprint like an ineradicable ‘stain within himself.

Someone may raise an objection here, based on a supposed anal-
ogy with the ‘descent into hell’ as is met with in the preliminary
phases of the initiatic journey; but any such assimilation is com-
pletely false, for the two aims have nothing in common, nor have
the conditions of the ‘subject’ in the two cases; there can be no ques-
tion of anything other than a profane parody, and that idea alone is
enough to impart to the whole affair a somewhat disturbing sugges-
tion of ‘counterfeit’. The truth is that this supposed ‘descent into
hell’, which is not followed by any ‘re-ascent’, is quite simply a ‘fall
into the mire’, as it is called according to the symbolism of some of
the ancient Mysteries. It is known that this ‘mire’ was figuratively
represented as the road leading to Eleusis, and that those who fell
into it were profane people who claimed initiation without being
qualified to receive it, and so were only the victims of their own
imprudence. It may be mentioned that such ‘mires’ really exist in
the macrocosmic as well as in the microcosmic order; this is directly
connected with the question of the ‘outer darkness’, 6 and certain
relevant Gospel texts could be recalled, the meaning of which agrees
exactly with what has just been explained. In the ‘descent into hell’
the being finally exhausts certain inferior possibilities in order to be
able to rise thereafter to superior states; in the ‘fall into the mire’ on
the other hand, the inferior possibilities take possession of him,
dominate him, and end by submerging him completely.

There was occasion in the previous paragraph again to use the
word ‘counterfeit’; the impression it conveys is greatly strengthened
by some other considerations, such as the denaturing of symbolism
previously mentioned, and the same kind of denaturing tends to
spread to everything that contains any element of a ‘supra-human’
order, as is shown by the attitude adopted toward religion , 7 and

6. The reader may be referred her£ to what has been said earlier about the sym-
bolism of the ‘Great Wall’ and of the mountain Lokaloka.

7. Freud devoted a book specially to the psychoanalytical interpretation of reli-
gion, in which his own conceptions are combined with the ‘totemism’ of the ‘socio-
logical school’.

THE MISDEEDS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 233

toward doctrines of a metaphysical and initiatic order such as Yoga.
Even these last do not escape this new kind of interpretation, which
is carried to such a point that some proceed to assimilate the meth-
ods of spiritual ‘realization’ to the therapeutical procedures of psy-
choanalysis. This is something even worse than the cruder
deformations also current in the West, such as those in which the
methods of Yoga are seen as a sort of ‘physical culture’ or as thera-
peutic methods of a purely physiological kind, for their very crudity
makes such deformations less dangerous than those that appear in a
more subtle guise. The subtler kind are the more dangerous not
simply because they are liable to lead astray minds on which the less
subtle could obtain no hold; they are certainly dangerous for that
reason, but there is another reason affecting a much wider field,
identical with that which has been described as making the materi-
alistic conception less dangerous than conceptions involving
recourse to an inferior psychism. Of course the purely spiritual aim,
which alone constitutes the essentiality of Yoga as such, and without
which the very use of the word becomes a mere absurdity, is no less
completely unrecognized in the one case than in the other. Yoga is in
fact no more a kind of psychic therapy than it is a kind of physiolog-
ical therapy, and its methods are in no way and in no degree a treat-
ment for people who are in any way ill or unbalanced; very far from
that, they are on the contrary intended exclusively for those who
must from the start and in their own natural dispositions be as per-^
fectly balanced as possible if they are to realize the spiritual develop-
ment which is the only object of the methods; but all these matters,
as will readily be understood, are strictly linked up with the whole
question of initiatic qualification . 8

But this is not yet all, for one other thing under the heading of
‘counterfeit’ is perhaps even more worthy of note than anything
mentioned so far, and that is the requirement imposed on anyone
who wants to practise psychoanalysis as a profession of being first

8 . On an attempt to apply psychoanalytical theories to the Taoist doctrine,
which is of the same order as Yoga , see the study by Andre Preau, La Fleur War et le
Taoisme sans Tao [Paris: Bibliotheque Chacornac, 1931], which contains an excellent
refutation of the attempted application.

234 THE reign of quantity

‘psychoanalyzed’ himself. This implies above all a recognition of the
fact that the being who has undergone this operation is never again
the same as he was before, in other words, to repeat an expression
already used above, it leaves in him an ineradicable imprint, as does
initiation, but as it were in an opposite sense, for what is here in
question is not a spiritual development, but the development of an
inferior psychism. In addition, there is an evident imitation of the
initiatic transmission; but, bearing in mind the difference in the
nature of the influences that intervene, and in view of the fact that
the production of an effective result does not allow the practice to
be regarded as nothing but a mere pretence without real signifi-
cance, the psycho-analytic transmission is really more comparable
to the transmission effected in a domain such as that of magic, or
even more accurately that of sorcery. And there remains yet another
very obscure point concerning the actual origin of the transmission:
it is obviously impossible to give to anyone else what one does not
possess oneself, and moreover the invention of psychoanalysis is
quite recent; so from what source did the first psychoanalysts obtain
the ‘powers’ that they communicate to their disciples, and by whom
were they themselves ‘psychoanalyzed’ in the first place? To ask this
question is only logical, at least for anyone capable of a little reflec-
tion, though it is probably highly indiscreet, and it is more than
doubtful whether a satisfactory answer will ever be obtained; but
even without any such answer this kind of psychic transmission
reveals a truly sinister ‘mark’ in the resemblances it calls to mind:
from this point of view psychoanalysis presents a rather terrifying
likeness to certain ‘sacraments of the devil’.

35

THE CONFUSION
OF THE PSYCHIC
AND THE SPIRITUAL

The account given above, dealing with some of the psycholog-
ical explanations that have been applied to traditional doctrines,
covers only a particular case of a confusion that is very widespread
in the modern world, namely, the confusion of the psychic and the
spiritual domains. Even when it is not carried to such a point as to
produce a subversion like that of psychoanalysis, this confusion
assimilates the spiritual to all that is most inferior in the psychic
order; it is therefore extremely serious in every case. In a sense it fol-
lows as a natural result of the fact that Westerners have for a very
long time past no longer known how to distinguish the ‘soul’ from
the ‘spirit’ (Cartesian dualism being to a great extent responsible for t
this, merging as it does into one and the same category everything
that is not the body, and designating this one vague and ill-defined
category indifferently by either name); and the confusion never
ceases to be apparent even in current language: the word ‘spirits’
is popularly used for psychic entities that are anything but ‘spiritual’,
and the very name ‘spiritualism’ is derived from that usage; this
mistake, together with another consisting in using the word ‘spirit’
for something that is really only mental, will be enough by way
of example for the present. It is all too easy to see the gravity of
the consequences of any such state of affairs: anyone who propa-
gates this confusion, whether intentionally or otherwise and espe-
cially under present conditions, is setting beings on the road to get-
ting irremediably lost in the chaos of the ‘intermediary world’,

236 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

and thereby, though often unconsciously, playing the game of the
‘satanic’ forces that rule over what has been called the ‘counter-
initiation’.

It is important at this point to be very precise if misunderstand-
ing is to be avoided: it cannot be said that a particular development
of the possibilities of a being, even in the comparatively low order
represented by the psychic domain, is essentially ‘malefic’ in itself;
but it is necessary not to forget that this domain is above all that of
illusions, and it is also necessary to know how to situate each thing
in the place to which it normally belongs; in short, everything
depends on the use made of any such development; the first thing to
be considered is therefore whether it is taken as an end in itself, or
on the other hand as a mere means for the attainment of a goal of a
superior order. Anything whatever can in fact serve, according to
the circumstances of each case, as an opportunity or ‘support’ to
one who has entered upon the way that is to lead him toward a spir-
itual ‘realization’; this is particularly true at the start, because of the
diversity of individual natures, which exercises its maximum infl-
uence at that point, but it is still true to a certain extent for so long
as the limits of the individuality have not been completely left
behind. But on the other hand, anything whatever can just as well
be an obstacle as a ‘support’, if the being does not pass beyond it
but allows itself to be deluded and led astray by appearances of real-
ization that have no inherent value and are only accidental and con-
tingent results— if indeed they can justifiably be regarded as results
from any point of view. The danger of going astray is always present
for exactly as long as the being is within the order of individual pos-
sibilities; it is without question greatest wherever psychic possibili-
ties are involved, and is naturally greater still when those pos-
sibilities are of a very inferior order.

The danger is certainly much less when possibilities confined to
the corporeal and physiological order alone are involved, as they are
in the case of the aforementioned error of some Westerners who
take Yoga, or at least the little they know of its preparatory proce-
dures, to be a sort of method of ‘physical culture’; in cases of that
kind, almost the only risk incurred is that of obtaining, by ‘prac-
tices’ accomplished ill-advisedly and without control, exactly the

THE CONFUSION OF THE PSYCHIC AND THE SPIRITUAL 237

opposite result to that desired, and of ruining one’s health while
seeking to improve it. Such things have no interest here save as
examples of a crude deviation in the employment of these ‘prac-
tices’, for they are really designed for quite a different purpose, as
remote as possible from the physiological domain, and natural
repercussions occurring in that domain constitute but a mere ‘acci-
dent’ not to be credited with the smallest importance. Nevertheless
it must be added that these same ‘practices’ can also have repercus-
sions in the subtle modalities of the individual unsuspected by the
ignorant person who undertakes them as he would a kind of ‘gym-
nastics’, and this considerably augments their danger. In this way
the door may be quite unwittingly opened to all sorts of influences
(those to take advantage of it in the first place being of course always
of the lowest quality), and the less suspicion the victim has of the
existence of anything of the kind the less is he prepared against
them, and still less is he able to discern their real nature; there is in
any event nothing in all this that can claim to be ‘spiritual’ in any
sense.

The state of affairs is quite different in cases where there is a con-
fusion of the psychic properly so called with the spiritual. This con-
fusion moreover appears in two contrary forms: in the first, the
spiritual is brought down to the level of the psychic, and this is what
happens more particularly in the kind of psychological explanations
already referred to; in the second, the psychic is on the other hand
mistaken for the spiritual; of this the most popular example is spiri-
tualism, though the other more complex forms of ‘neo-spiritualism’
all proceed from the very same error. In either case it is clearly the
spiritual that is misconceived; but the first case concerns those who
simply deny it, at least in practice if not always explicitly, whereas
the second concerns those who are subject to the delusion of a false
spirituality; and it is this second case that is now more particularly
in view. The reason why so many people allow themselves to be led
astray by this delusion is fundamentally quite simple: some of them
seek above all for imagined ‘powers’, or broadly speaking and in one
form or another, for the production of more or less extraordinary
‘phenomena’; others constrain themselves to ‘centralize’ their con-
sciousness on inferior ‘prolongations’ of the human individuality,

238 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

mistaking them for superior states simply because they are outside
the limits within which the activities of the ‘average’ man are gener-
ally enclosed, the limits in question being, in the state correspond-
ing to the profane point of view of the present period, those of what
is commonly called ‘ordinary life’, into which no possibility of an
extra-corporeal order can enter. Even within the latter group it is the
lure of the ‘phenomenon’, that is to say in the final analysis the
‘experimental’ tendency in the modern spirit, which is most fre-
quently at the root of the error; what these people are in fact trying
to obtain is always results that are in some way ‘sensational’, and
they mistake such results for ‘realization’; but this again amounts to
saying that everything belonging to the spiritual order escapes them
completely, that they are unable even to conceive of anything of the
kind, however remotely; and it would be very much better for them,
since they are entirely lacking in spiritual ‘qualification’, if they were
content to remain enclosed in the commonplace and mediocre
security of ‘ordinary life’. Of course there can be no question of
denying the reality as such of the ‘phenomena’ concerned; in fact
they can be said to be only too real, and for that reason all the more
dangerous. What is now being formally contested is their value and
their interest, particularly from the point of view of spiritual devel-
opment, and the delusion itself concerns the very nature of spiritual
development. Again, if no more than a mere waste of time and effort
were involved, the harm would not after all be so very great, but
generally speaking the being that becomes attached to such things
soon becomes incapable of releasing itself from them or passing
beyond them, and its deviation is then beyond remedy; the occur-
rence of cases of this kind is well known in all the Eastern traditions,
where the individuals affected become mere producers of ‘phenom-
ena’ and will never attain the least degree of spirituality. But there is
still something more, for a sort of ‘inverted’ development can take
place, not only conferring no useful advantage, but taking the being
ever further away from spiritual ‘realization’, until it is irretrievably
astray in the inferior ‘prolongations’ of its individuality recently
mentioned, and through these it can only come into contact with
the ‘infra- human’. There is then no escape from its situation, or at
least there is only one, and that is the total disintegration of the con-
scious being; such a disintegration is strictly equivalent in the case of

THE CONFUSION OF THE PSYCHIC AND THE SPIRITUAL 239

the individual to final dissolution in the case of the totality of the
manifested ‘cosmos’.

For this reason, perhaps more than for any other, it is impossible
to be too mistrustful of every appeal to the ‘subconscious’, to
‘instinct’, and to sub-rational ‘intuition’, no less than to a more or
less ill-defined ‘vital force’— in a word to all those vague and obscure
things that tend to exalt the new philosophy and psychology, yet
lead more or less directly to a contact with inferior states. There is
therefore all the more reason to exercise extreme vigilance (for the
enemy knows only too well how to take on the most insidious dis-
guises) against anything that may lead the being to become ‘fused’
or preferably and more accurately ‘confused’ or even ‘dissolved’ in a
sort of ‘cosmic consciousness’ that shuts out all ‘transcendence’ and
so also shuts out all effective spirituality. This is the ultimate conse-
quence of all the anti-metaphysical errors known more especially in
their philosophical aspect by such names as ‘pantheism’, ‘im-
manentism’, and ‘naturalism’, all of which are closely interrelated,
and many people would doubtless recoil before such a consequence
if they could know what it is that they are really talking about. These
things do indeed quite literally amount to an ‘inversion’ of spiritual-
ity, to a substitution for it of what is truly its opposite, since they
inevitably lead to its final loss, and this constitutes ‘satanism’ prop-
erly so called. Whether it be conscious or unconscious in any partic-
ular case makes little difference to the result, for it must not be
forgotten that the ‘unconscious satanism’ of some people, who are
more numerous than ever in this period in which disorder has
spread into every domain, is really in the end no more than an
instrument in the service of the ‘conscious satanism’ of those who
represent the ‘counter- initiation’.

There has been occasion elsewhere to call attention to the initiatic
symbolism of a ‘navigation’ across the ocean (representing the psy-
chic domain), which must be crossed while avoiding all its dangers
in order to reach the goal ; 1 but what is to be said of someone who
flings himself into the ocean and has no aspiration but to drown
himself in it? This is very precisely the significance of a so-called
‘fusion’ with a ‘cosmic consciousness’ that is really nothing but the

1. See The King of the World and Spiritual Authority & Temporal Power.

240 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

confused and indistinct assemblage of all the psychic influences;
and, whatever some people may imagine, these influences have
absolutely nothing in common with spiritual influences, even if they
may happen to imitate them to a certain extent in some of their out-
ward manifestations (for in this domain ‘counterfeit’ comes into
play in all its fullness, and this is why the ‘phenomenal’ manifesta-
tions so eagerly sought for never by themselves prove anything, for
they can be very much the same in a saint as in a sorcerer). Those
who make this fatal mistake either forget about or are unaware of
the distinction between the ‘upper waters’ and the ‘lower waters’;
instead of raising themselves toward the ‘ocean above’, they plunge
into the abyss of the ‘ocean below’; instead of concentrating all their
powers so as to direct them toward the formless world, which alone
can be called ‘spiritual’, they disperse them in the endlessly change-
able and fugitive diversity of the forms of subtle manifestation (this
diversity corresponding as nearly as possible to the Bergsonian con-
ception of ‘reality’) with no suspicion that they are mistaking for a
fullness of ‘life’ something that is in truth the realm of death and of a
dissolution without hope of return.

36

PSEUDO-INITIATION

The anti-traditional activity now being studied in its vari-
ous aspects has been called ‘satanic’, but it must be clearly under-
stood that this word is used quite independently of any particular
idea that anyone may have formed, whether in conformity with
some theological outlook or otherwise, of any so-called ‘Satan; it is
superfluous to say that ‘personifications’ have no importance from
the present point of view and can have nothing to do with the mat-
ter in hand. What has to be taken into account is, on the one hand,
the spirit of negation and of subversion into which ‘Satan’ is re-
solved metaphysically, whatever may be the special forms assumed
by that spirit in order to be manifested in one domain or another,
and, on the other hand, the thing that can properly be held to repre-
sent it and so to speak to ‘incarnate’ it in the terrestrial world,
in which its action is being studied— and this thing is precisely
what has been called the ‘counter-initiation’. It should be noted that
the expression ‘counter- initiation’ has been used here, and not
‘pseudo-initiation’, for the two are quite different, and it is impor-
tant moreover not to confuse the counterfeiter with the counterfeit.
‘Pseudo-initiation’ as it exists today in numerous organizations,
many of them attached to some form of ‘neo-spiritualism’, is but
one of many examples of counterfeit, comparable to others to
which attention has already been directed in their various orders;
nevertheless, as a counterfeit of initiation, ‘pseudo-initiation’ has
perhaps an importance even more considerable than that of the
counterfeit of anything else. It is really only one of the products
of the state of disorder and confusion brought about in the modern
period by the ‘satanic’ activity that has its conscious starting-point
in the ‘counter-initiation’; it can also be, although unconsciously,

242 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

an instrument of the latter, though this is no less true in the end of
all the other counterfeits, whatever their degree, in the sense that
they are all just so many means contributing to the realization of the
same plan of subversion, so that each plays exactly the part, whether
it be of greater or of lesser importance, that is assigned to it within
the whole, this state of affairs itself constituting moreover a sort of
counterfeit of the very order and harmony against which the whole
plan is directed.

As for the ‘counter-initiation, it is certainly not a mere illusory
counterfeit, but on the contrary something very real in its own
order, as the effectiveness of its action shows only too well; at least, it
is not a counterfeit except in the sense that it necessarily imitates ini-
tiation like an inverted shadow, although its real intention is not to
imitate but to oppose. This intention is inevitably doomed to fail-
ure, for the metaphysical and spiritual domain is completely closed
to it, being inherently outside all oppositions; all it can do is to
ignore or to deny that domain, and it can in no case get beyond the
‘intermediary world’; the psychic domain is indeed in all respects
the privileged sphere of influence of ‘Satan’ in the human order and
even in the cosmic order ; 1 but the intention exists nonetheless, and
it implies a policy of working consistently in direct opposition to
initiation. As for ‘pseudo-initiation’, it is no more than a mere par-
ody, and this is as much as to say that it is nothing in itself, that it is
devoid of all profound reality, or, if preferred, that its intrinsic value
is neither positive like that of initiation nor negative like that of
‘counter-initiation’, but is quite simply nil. That being the case, one
might be tempted to think that it is nothing but a more or less
harmless amusement, but it is not merely that, for reasons that have
been stated in the general explanations given of the true character of
counterfeits and the part they are destined to play— and with the
additional reason in this particular case that rites, by virtue of their
nature, which is ‘sacred’ in the strictest sense of the word, are such
that they can never be imitated with impunity. It can be said too

1. According to the Islamic doctrine it is through the nafs (soul) that Shaytiin
can obtain a hold on man, whereas the rtih (spirit), of which the essence is pure
light, is beyond the reach of his endeavors.

PSEUDO-INITIATION 243

that the 'pseudo-traditional’ counterfeits, to which belong all the
denaturings of the idea of tradition dealt with hitherto, take their
most dangerous form in ‘pseudo-initiation’, first because in it they
are translated into effective action instead of remaining in the form
of more or less vague conceptions, and secondly because they make
their attack on tradition from the inside, on what is its very spirit,
namely, the esoteric and initiatic domain.

It may be remarked that the ‘counter-initiation’ works with a
view to introducing its agents into ‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations,
using the agents to ‘inspire’ the organizations, unperceived by the
ordinary members and usually also by the ostensible heads, who are
no more aware than the rank-and-file of the purpose they are really
serving; but it is as well to add that such agents are in fact intro-
duced in a similar way and wherever possible into all the more exte-
rior ‘movements’ of the contemporary world, political or otherwise,
and even, as was mentioned earlier, into authentically initiatic or
religious organizations, but only when their traditional spirit is so
weakened that they can no longer resist so insidious a penetration.
Nevertheless, except for the last-named case, in which there is the
most direct application possible of dissolutionary activity, the
‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations doubtless furnish the field of action
most worthy of the attention of the ‘counter-initiation’, and they
must be the object of special efforts on its part for the very reason
that the work it undertakes is above all anti-traditional, and that it
is wholly concentrated on that work and on nothing else. This is the
probable reason for the existence of numerous links between
‘pseudo-initiatic’ manifestations and all sorts of other things that at
first sight might appear to have no connection whatever with them,
but that are all representative of the modern spirit in one or another
of its most fully developed forms ; 2 why indeed, if it were not so,
should ‘pseudo-initiates’ constantly play so important a part in such
affairs? It could be said that, among all the instruments or measures
of all kinds employed in this sort of way, ‘pseudo-initiation’ must
from its very nature logically take first place; it is of course but a cog

2. A number of examples of activities of this kind have been given in Theosophy:
History of a Pseudo- Religion.

244 THE reign of quantity

in the machine, but a cog that controls many others, and one with
which the others become engaged, as it were, in such a way that they
derive their movement from it. Here again counterfeit makes its
appearance: ‘pseudo-initiation’ imitates in this way the function of
an invisible prime mover [moteur invisible ] , properly belonging in a
normal order to initiation; but great care must be taken not to for-
get that initiation truly and legitimately represents the spirit, princi-
pal animator of all things, whereas so far as ‘pseudo-initiation’ is
concerned the spirit is obviously absent. The immediate result is
that action instigated through such channels, instead of being truly
organic’, can only have a purely ‘mechanical’ character, and this fact
fully justifies the analogy with cogs used above; moreover, as we
have already seen, is it not obvious that the most striking feature of
everything we meet with in the world today is its mechanical char-
acter, this world where day by day the machine invades new fields,
and where the human being himself is reduced to being more and
more like an automaton in all his activities, because all spirituality
has been taken away from him? That is where all the inferiority of
artificial productions is most blatant, even if a ‘satanic’ cleverness
has presided over their elaboration; machines can be manufactured,
but not living beings, because, once more, it is the spirit that is
bound to be missing and must always remain so.

An ‘invisible prime mover’ has been mentioned, and in addition
to the imitative tendency that is again in evidence from this point of
view, ‘pseudo-initiation’ derives for the purpose it has in view an
incontestable advantage over anything that is more ‘public’ in char-
acter from its comparative ‘invisibility’, however relative it may be.
It is not as if ‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations for the most part took
much trouble to hide their existence, many of them indeed going so
far as openly to indulge in a propaganda totally incompatible with
their esoteric pretensions, but in spite of this they continue as orga-
nizations to be among the least apparent, and to be those that best
lend themselves to the exercise of a ‘discreet’ action, so that the
‘counter-initiation’ can get more v directly into contact with them
than with anything else, without having to fear that its intervention
will be unmasked, and all the more so because in any such environ-
ment it is always possible to find some means of escape from the

PSEUDO-INITIATION 245

consequences of an indiscretion or a lack of prudence. Moreover
the greater part of the general public, while it is more or less aware
of the existence of ‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations, is by no means
clear as to what they are and is not inclined to attach much impor-
tance to them, as it sees nothing in them but mere ‘eccentricities’
without serious significance; and the very indifference of the public
serves the same purpose, albeit unwittingly, as could be attained by
strict secrecy.

So far, an attempt has been made to describe as clearly as possible
the real, though unconscious, part played by ‘pseudo-initiation’ and
the true nature of its relations with the ‘counter-initiation’; and it
should be added that the latter may in certain cases find in the
former a field of observation and selection for recruitment to its
own ranks, but that aspect of the matter need not be pursued here.
There is also something of which not even an approximate idea can
be conveyed, and that is the unbelievable multiplicity and complex-
ity of the ramifications that in fact subsist between all these things,
for they are indeed such that they could only be clarified by a direct
and detailed study; but it will probably be agreed that only the
‘principle’, if that is the right word, is of interest for the present.
Nevertheless this is not all: a broad view has been given of the rea-
son for the counterfeiting of the traditional idea by ‘pseudo-initia-
tion’; it remains to be shown more precisely how this is achieved, so
that the treatment of the matter may not appear to have been too
exclusively ‘theoretical’.

One of the simplest means at the disposal of ‘pseudo-initiatic’
organizations for the fabrication of a false tradition for the use of
their adherents is undoubtedly ‘syncretism’, which consists in
assembling in a more or less convincing manner elements borrowed
from almost anywhere, and in putting them together as it were
‘from the outside’, without any genuine understanding of what they
really represent in the various traditions to which they properly
belong. As any such more or less shapeless assemblage must be given
some appearance of unity so that it can be presented as a ‘doctrine’,
its elements must somehow be grouped around one or more
‘directing ideas’, and these last will not be of traditional origin,
but, quite the contrary, will usually be wholly profane and modern

246 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

conceptions, and so inherently anti-traditional; it has already been
remarked that in ‘neo-spiritualism’ the idea of ‘evolution’ in particu-
lar plays a preponderant part in this capacity. It is easy to under-
stand that any such procedure greatly enhances the gravity of the
situation; under such conditions it is no longer a question of mak-
ing a sort of ‘mosaic’ of traditional odds and ends, which might after
all provide no more than a perfectly useless but fairly inoffensive
amusement; it becomes a question of denaturing, and it could be
described as a ‘perversion’ of traditional elements, since people will
be led to attribute to them a meaning altered so as to agree with the
‘directing idea’, until finally it runs directly counter to the tradi-
tional meaning. Of course those who do this sort of thing may not
be acting with any clear consciousness, for the modern mentality
that is theirs can be the cause of a real blindness in such matters, in
all of which due account must always be taken, first of the simple
incomprehension arising from that very mentality, and then, or
rather perhaps especially, of the ‘suggestions’ victimizing in the first
place the ‘pseudo-initiates’ themselves, so that they may in their
turn join in inculcating the same suggestions into other people.
This kind of unconsciousness in no way alters the results or dimin-
ishes the danger of such things, nor does it make them any less
suited to serve, even if only ‘after the event’, the ends at which the
‘counter-initiation’ is aiming. There are of course cases in which
agents of the ‘counter-initiation’ may have promoted or inspired the
formation of ‘pseudo-traditions’ of the kind described by a more or
less direct intervention; a few examples could no doubt be found,
but it should not be assumed that even in these cases the conscious
agents have themselves been the known and apparent creators of the
‘pseudo-initiatic’ forms in question, for it is clear that prudence
demands that they should always hide as much as possible behind
mere unconscious instruments.

The word ‘unconsciousness’ as used above is intended to mean
that those who thus elaborate a ‘pseudo-tradition’ are usually totally
unaware of the purpose it is really serving. Concerning the character
and value of any such production, it is more difficult to admit the
purity of their good faith, though even in that respect it is possible
that they delude themselves to some extent, or that they may be

PSEUDO-INITIATION 24 J

deceived in the manner outlined at the end of the previous para-
graph. Account must also be taken fairly frequently of ‘anomalies’ of
a psychic nature, which again complicate matters and incidentally
provide particularly favorable conditions for influences and sugges-
tions of all sorts to produce their maximum effect; attention need
only be called, without pursuing the matter further, to the anything
but negligible part frequently played in such affairs by ‘clairvoyants’
and other ‘sensitives’. But in spite of everything, there almost always
comes a point at which conscious trickery and charlatanism become
a sort of necessity for the directors of a ‘pseudo-initiatic’ organiza-
tion: for instance, if someone happens to notice borrowings made
more or less clumsily from a particular tradition— and it is not very
difficult to do so— how could the directors admit the fact without
being obliged to confess themselves to be no better than ordinary
profane people? They do not usually hesitate in a case of that kind to
reverse the true relations and boldly declare that it is their own ‘tra-
dition’ that is the common ‘source’ of all those they have robbed;
and if they do not manage to convince everyone, at least there are
always some innocents who will take them at their word, and in
numbers sufficient to ensure that their position as ‘heads of schools’,
to which they usually cling above everything else, is not in danger of
being seriously compromised, all the more so because they do not
pay much attention to the quality of their ‘disciples’, for, in confor-
mity with the modern mentality, quantity seems to them much
more important; and this alone is enough to show how very far they
are from having even the most elementary notion of the real nature
of esoterism and initiation.

It is scarcely necessary to say that all that has been described so far
is no mere matter of more or less hypothetical possibilities, but is a
matter of real and properly established fact; if all the facts had to be
specified there would be no end to it, and to attempt the task would
serve no very useful purpose: a few characteristic examples will
suffice. For instance, the procedure of ‘syncretism’ recently men-
tioned has been followed in the setting up of a sham ‘Oriental tradi-
tion’, that of the Theosophists, comprising nothing oriental but a
terminology misunderstood and misapplied; and as the world of
such affairs is always ‘divided against itself’ in accordance with the

248 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

Gospel saying, French occultists in a spirit of opposition and rivalry
constructed in their turn a so-called ‘Western tradition’ of the same
kind, in which many of the elements, notably those drawn from the
Kabbalah, can hardly be said to be Western with respect to their ori-
gin, though they are Western enough with respect to the special
manner of their interpretation. The first-named presented their ‘tra-
dition’ as the very expression of ‘ancient wisdom’, the second, per-
haps a little more modest in their pretensions, sought more
particularly to pass off their ‘syncretism’ as a ‘synthesis’, and few
people have misused this last word so badly. If the first-named
showed more ambition it is perhaps because there were present at
the origins of their ‘movement’ some rather enigmatic influences,
the true nature of which they themselves would no doubt have been
quite unable to determine; so far as the second group is concerned,
they knew only too well that there was nothing behind them, that
their work was only that of a few individuals with nothing but
themselves to rely on, and if nevertheless it so happened that ‘some-
thing’ else effected an entry, that certainly did not happen till much
later; these two cases, considered in relation to the circumstances
outlined, could without difficulty be taken as applications of what
was said earlier, but the task of deducing the consequences that may
seem to the reader to arise logically can be left to his own efforts.

The truth is that there has never existed anything that could
rightly be called either an ‘Oriental tradition’ or a ‘Western tradi-
tion’, any such denomination being obviously much too vague to be
applied to a defined traditional form, since, unless one goes back to
the primordial tradition, which is here not in question for very eas-
ily understandable reasons, and which is anyhow neither Eastern
nor Western, there are and there always have been diverse and mul-
tiple traditional forms both in the East and in the West. Others have
thought to do better and to inspire confidence more easily by appro-
priating to themselves the name of some tradition that really existed
at some more or less distant date, and using it as a label for a struc-
ture that is no less incongruous than the others, for although they
naturally make some use of what they can manage to find out about
the tradition on which they have staked their claim, they are forced
to reinforce their few facts, always very fragmentary and often even

PSEUDO-INITIATION 249

partly hypothetical, by recourse to other elements either borrowed
from a different source or wholly imaginary. In every case, a cursory
examination of these productions is enough to make apparent the
specifically modern spirit that has presided over their formation,
and it is invariably betrayed by the presence of one or more of the
‘directive ideas’ alluded to above; after that there is no object in fur-
ther researches nor in taking the trouble to determine exactly and in
detail the real source of any one element of the mixture, since the
first discovery shows clearly enough, and without leaving room for
the smallest doubt, that one is in the presence of nothing but a pure
counterfeit.

One of the best examples that can be given of the last-named case
is that of the many organizations that at the present time call them-
selves ‘Rosicrucian’; needless to say, they do not fail to be mutually
contradictory, and even to quarrel more or less openly, while all
claim to be the representatives of one and the same ‘tradition’. In
fact any one of them, without a single exception, can be admitted to
be perfectly right when it denounces its rivals as being illegitimate
and fraudulent; never have there been as many people calling them-
selves ‘Rosicrucian’, or even ‘Brothers of the Rose-Cross’, as can be
found now that there are no authentic ones left! There is anyhow
very little danger in passing oneself off as the continuation of some-
thing that belongs entirely to the past, especially when the danger of
exposure is further reduced by the fact that the organization in
question has, as in this case, always been enveloped in some obscu-
rity, so much so that its end is as obscure as its origin; is there any-
one among the profane public or even among the ‘pseudo-initiates’
who can say exactly what the tradition that was known for a time as
Rosicrucian really was? It should be mentioned that these remarks
on the usurpation of the name of an initiatic organization do not
apply to a case such as that of the imaginary ‘Great White Lodge’, of
which oddly enough more and more is being heard in many quar-
ters, and no longer only among the Theosophists: at no time and in
no place has this name ever had an authentically traditional conno-
tation; and if it is used as the conventional ‘mask’ for something
that has some degree of reality, then that thing should certainly not
be sought for in the initiatic domain.

250 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

The fact that some people choose to locate the ‘Masters’ to whom
they profess adherence in some highly inaccessible region of central
Asia or elsewhere has often aroused comment; this is a fairly easy
way of ensuring that their assertions are unverifiable, but it is not
the only way, because remoteness in time can serve the same pur-
pose in this respect as remoteness in space. Others do not hesitate to
claim to be attached to some tradition that has entirely disappeared
and has been extinct for centuries, even for thousands of years.
However, unless they are bold enough to assert that their chosen
tradition has been perpetuated for that length of time in a manner
so secret and so well concealed that nobody but themselves has been
able to discover the smallest trace of it, they are admittedly deprived
of the appreciable advantage of being able to claim a direct and con-
tinuous filiation, for in their case the claim cannot even present an
appearance of plausibility such as it can still present when of a fairly
recent form such as that of the Rosicrucian tradition is chosen; but
this defect does not seem to have much importance in their eyes, for
they are so ignorant of the true conditions of initiation that they
readily imagine that a mere ‘ideal’ attachment, without any regular
transmission, can take the place of an effective attachment. It is
moreover clear that a tradition will lend itself the more readily to
any fantastic ‘reconstitution’ the more completely it is lost and for-
gotten, and that it is then all the more difficult to be sure about the
real significance of its remaining vestiges, which can therefore be
made to mean almost anything desired, each person naturally put-
ting into it whatever may conform to his own ideas. There is doubt-
less no need to look for any other explanation of the fact that the
Egyptian tradition is specially exploited’ in this way, and that so
many ‘pseudo-initiates’ of very different schools show a preference
for it that would otherwise be difficult to understand. It must be
made clear, in order to avoid any mistaken application of what has
been said, that these observations in no way concern references to
Egypt or to other things of the same kind such as may sometimes be
met with in certain initiatic organizations, where however their
character is only that of symbolical ‘legends’, with no pretension to
a superior value based on their initiatic origin. The question now at
issue is that of alleged restorations, purporting to be valid as such,

PSEUDO-INITIATION 251

of traditions or initiations that no longer exist; but no such restora-
tion, even on the impossible supposition that it could be exact and
complete in all respects, would in any case possess any inherent
interest, except as a mere archaeological curiosity.

Here this already long discussion must be brought to a close; it
has amply sufficed to indicate in a general way the nature of the
many ‘pseudo-initiatic’ counterfeits of the traditional idea that are
so characteristic of our times; a mixture, more or less coherent but
rather less than more so, of elements partly borrowed and partly
invented, the whole dominated by anti-traditional conceptions
such as are peculiar to the modern spirit, and for this reason serving
no purpose other than the further spread of these same conceptions
by making them pass with some people as traditional, not to men-
tion the manifest deceit that consists in giving, in place of ‘initia-
tion’, not only something purely profane in itself, but also
something that makes for ‘profanation’. Should anyone now put
forward the suggestion, as a sort of extenuating circumstance, that
there are always in these affairs, despite all their faults, some ele-
ments derived from genuinely traditional sources, the answer
would be this: in order to get itself accepted, every imitation must
take on at least some of the features of the thing imitated, but that is
just what makes it so dangerous; is not the cleverest lie, as well as
the most deadly, precisely the lie that mixes most inextricably the
true and the false, thus contriving to press the true into service in
order to promote the triumph of the false?

37

THE DECEPTIVENESS

of ‘prophecies’

The mixture of truth and falsehood met with in the
‘pseudo-traditions’ of modern manufacture is found again in the so-
called ‘prophecies’ that have been propagated and exploited in every
way, especially in the last few years, for ends of which the least that
can be said is that they are highly enigmatic. They are described as
‘so-called’ prophecies because the word ‘prophecy’ can only be
properly used of the announcements of future events contained in
the sacred books of the various traditions and proceeding from an
inspiration of a purely spiritual order; any other use of the word is
entirely misleading, ‘prediction’ being the proper word to use in all
other cases. Predictions may come from quite varied sources; at least
some have been a result of the application of certain secondary tra-
ditional sciences, and these are certainly the most valid, but only on
condition that their meaning can really be understood, and this is
not always very easy, because for many reasons they are usually for-
mulated in rather obscure terms, which often do not become clear
until after the events to which they relate have taken place; it is there-
fore always as well to be mistrustful, not of the predictions them-
selves, but of the erroneous or ‘tendentious’ interpretations that may
be made of them. As for the rest, insofar as there is anything authen-
tic in them, it emanates almost exclusively from ‘seers’— sincere no
doubt, though only very partially ‘enlightened’— who have experi-
enced certain confused perceptions delated more or less accurately
to a future that is usually not at all clearly determined, particularly as
to the date and the order of succession of events, and who have

THE DECEPTIVENESS OF ‘ PROPHECIES ’ 253

unconsciously mixed those perceptions with their own ideas and
consequently expressed them still more confusedly, so much so that
it becomes possible to find in their statements almost anything one
wants to find.

It is easy to see what purpose this sort of thing can serve under
present conditions: such predictions almost always present every-
thing in a distressing or even in a terrifying light, because that is the
aspect of events that has naturally struck the ‘seers’, it is therefore
enough, in order to disturb the mentality of the public, merely to
spread them about, accompanied if necessary by commentaries that
will emphasize their threatening aspect and will treat the events they
are concerned with as imminent . 1 If one prediction agrees with
another their effect will be reinforced, and if they contradict one
another, as often happens, they will only produce all the more disor-
der; in either case there will be so much the more gained by the
forces of subversion. It must be added too that all these things, pro-
ceeding as they generally do from fairly low regions in the psychic
domain, carry with them for that reason unbalancing and dissolv-
ing influences that add considerably to their danger, this no doubt
being why even those who put no faith in them experience, in many
cases, a kind of discomfort in their presence, comparable to that
induced even in people who are not at all ‘sensitive’ by the presence
of subtle forces of an inferior order. One would scarcely believe, for
example, how many people have become seriously and perhaps irre-
mediably unbalanced through the numerous predictions connected
with the ‘Great Pope’ or the ‘Grand Monarch’. These predictions do
contain a few traces of certain truths, but strangely distorted by the
‘mirrors’ of an inferior psychism, and in addition brought down to
the measure of the mentality of the ‘seers’ who have to some extent
‘materialized’ them and have ‘localized’ them more or less narrowly

1. The announcement of the destruction of Paris by fire, for example, has been
promulgated several times in this way, the exact dates being specified, although
nothing has ever happened, except for the impression of terror invariably aroused
in many people, and never growing any less with the repeated failure of the predic-
tions.

254 THE reign of quantity

so as to force them into the framework of their own preconceived
ideas . 2 The way in which this group of predictions is presented by
the ‘seers’ in question, who are very often the subjects of ‘sugges-
tions ’, 3 makes a near approach to certain very dark and ‘under-
ground’ matters, the astonishing ramifications of which, at least
since the beginning of the nineteenth century, would be particularly
interesting to follow for anyone who wanted to write a history of
those times, a history would certainly be very different from the one
that is taught ‘officially’. But needless to say there can be no question
of going into the detail of these matters, and it must suffice simply to
have mentioned this very complex affair, which has obviously been
intentionally confused in all its aspects ; 4 for it could not have been
passed over in silence without leaving too big a blank in the list of
the principal elements characteristic of the modern period, since it
constitutes one of the most significant symptoms of the second
phase of anti-traditional action.

Moreover, the mere propagation of predictions such as those
alluded to is only the most elementary part of the work now going
on in this field, for almost all the propagation that needs to be done
has already been done, though unwittingly, by the ‘seers’ them-
selves; other parts of the work demand the elaboration of subtler
interpretations if the predictions are to be made to serve the desired
ends. The predictions used in this way are more particularly those
that are based on certain forms of traditional knowledge, and then
it is their obscurity that is chiefly taken advantage of for the purpose

2. The relatively valid part of the predictions in question seems to be related
chiefly to the function of the Mahdi and that of the tenth Avatdra ; these matters,
which directly concern the preparation for the final ‘rectification’, are outside the
subject of this book; all that need be mentioned now is that their very deformation
lends itself to an ‘inverted’ exploitation leading toward subversion.

3. It must be clearly understood that this in no way means that they are the sub-
jects of ‘hallucinations’: the difference between the meaning of the two terms is the
difference between seeing things that have been consciously and voluntarily imag-
ined by others, and imagining them oneself ‘subconsciously’.

4. For example, a little thought about all that has been done to throw the ques-
tion of the survival of Louis xvn into inextricable confusion will give an idea of
what is meant here.

THE DECEPTIVENESS OF ‘ PROPHECIES ’ 255

in view ; 5 some of the Biblical prophecies themselves are for the
same reason the objects of this kind of ‘tendentious’ interpretation,
the authors of which are incidentally often acting in good faith, but
can only be regarded as the victims of ‘suggestion’ and as being
made use of to apply ‘suggestion’ to others. It is as if there were a
sort of highly contagious psychic ‘epidemic’, but it fits too neatly
into the plan of subversion to be ‘spontaneous’; on the contrary, like
all other manifestations of the modern disorder (including the rev-
olutions, which the ingenuous also believe to be ‘spontaneous’) it
necessarily presupposes a conscious will at its starting-point. The
worst form of blindness would be to see nothing more in all this but
a mere question of ‘fashion’ without real importance ; 6 and the same
could be said of the growing diffusion of certain ‘divinatory arts’,
which are certainly not as inoffensive as people who do not get to
the bottom of things may suppose: they are generally the uncom-
prehended residues of ancient traditional sciences now almost
entirely lost, and, apart from the danger already attached to them by
virtue of their ‘residual’ character, they are arranged and combined
in such a way that their employment opens the door, under the pre-
text of ‘intuition’ (and this approach to the ‘new philosophy’ is in
itself rather remarkable), to the intervention of all those psychic
influences that are most dubious in character . 7

Use is also made, along with appropriate interpretations, of pre-
dictions more suspect in origin but nonetheless fairly old; these

5. The predictions of Nostradamus provide die most typical and die most
important example; the more or less extraordinary interpretations assigned to
them, particularly in the last few years, are almost numberless.

6. ‘Fashion’ itself, an essentially modern invention, is in its real significance
something not entirely devoid of importance: it represents unceasing and aimless
change, in contrast to the stability and order that reign in traditional civilizations.

7. Much could be said in this connection about the use of the Tarot in particu-
lar. It contains vestiges of an undeniably traditional science, whatever may have
been its real origin, but it also has some very tenebrous aspects; no allusion is
intended here to the many occultist fantasies to which the Tarot has given rise, for
they are mostly negligible; the concern is with something much more effective,
making its handling really dangerous for anyone not sufficiendy protected against
the action of the ‘underground forces’.

256 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

were perhaps not originally made in order to be of use in present
circumstances, although the powers of subversion had evidently
acquired some considerable influence at the time of their origin (the
time in question being that at which the modern deviation may be
said to have begun, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries),
and it is not impossible that those powers then had in view, not only
some more special and immediate objective, but also the prepara-
tion for a work not intended to be accomplished until after a long
interval . 8 This preparation has in fact never ceased: it has been car-
ried out in other modalities, of which the ‘suggestion’ applied to
modern ‘seers’ and the organization of ‘apparitions’ of a very unor-
thodox kind represent an aspect in which the direct intervention of
subtle influences is most clearly shown; but this aspect is not the
only one, and, even when it is a question of predictions apparently
manufactured ‘from start to finish’, similar influences may very well
come into play to no less an extent, firstly for the very reason that
their original inspiration emanates from a ‘counter-initiatic’ source,
and secondly because of the nature of the elements that are taken to
serve as ‘supports’ to their elaboration.

These last words are written with an example in mind that is
quite astonishing, as much in itself as in the success it has had in
many quarters; for those reasons it deserves rather more than a
mere mention: the example is that of the so-called ‘prophecies of the
Great Pyramid’, widely disseminated in England and thence to the
whole world for ends that are perhaps in part political, but which
certainly go beyond politics in the ordinary sense of the word. They

8. Anyone who may be desirous of learning some details of this aspect of the
question might usefully consult, in spite of the reservations that would have to be
made on certain points, a book called Autour de la Tiare by Roger Duquet, the post-
humous work of a man who had been fairly closely involved in some of the ‘under-
ground’ work referred to above, and who wanted at the end of his life to give his
‘testimony’, as he himself says, and to contribute to some extent to the unmasking
of these mysterious undercurrents; the ‘personal’ reasons he may have had for
doing this have no importance, and in any<ase clearly do not detract in any way
from the interest of his ‘revelations’. [Full reference: Roger Duquet, Autour de la
Tiare: Essai sur les propheties concernant la succession des papes du XHIe siecle d la fin
des temps: Joachim de Fiore, Anselma de Marsico, St. Malachie, le ‘Moine de Padoue
etc. (Paris: Nouvelle editions latine, 1997). Ed.]

THE DECEPTIVENESS OF ‘ PROPHECIES ’ 257

are closely linked to another piece of work undertaken in order to
persuade the English that they are the descendants of the ‘lost tribes
of Israel’; but here again it would be impossible to go into details
without getting involved in developments that would be out of place
here. However that may be, here is the gist of the matter in a few
words: by measuring, in a manner not wholly free from arbitrari-
ness (all the more so because nobody is in fact quite sure about the
measures actually used by the ancient Egyptians), the various parts
of the corridors and chambers of the Great Pyramid , 9 an attempt
has been made to discover ‘prophecies’ in the form of correspon-
dences between the numbers thus obtained and the dates of history.
There is in this an absurdity so manifest that one cannot but wonder
how it is that nobody seems to notice it; it only shows the extent to
which our contemporaries are victims of ‘suggestion’, for even sup-
posing that the constructors of the Pyramid really did build some
sort of ‘prophecies’ into it, there are two things that would on the
whole be plausible: either that the ‘prophecies’, which would neces-
sarily have to be based on some knowledge of cyclic laws, should be
related to the history of the world in general and of humanity, or
that they should be adapted so as to deal more particularly with
Egypt; but in fact neither turns out to be the case, for all the infor-
mation extracted is in a form related to the point of view of Judaism
in the first place, and of Christianity in the second, so that the only
logical conclusion would be that the Pyramid is not an Egyptian
monument at all, but a ‘Judeo-Christian’ monument! This alone
should be enough to put this unlikely story into its proper place;
but it is worth adding that the whole is conceived in accordance
with a so-called ‘chronology’ of the Bible that is highly contestable

9. The Great Pyramid is in truth not so very much bigger than the two others,
especially than its nearest neighbor, so that the difference is not very striking; but
without any very evident reason all the modern ‘seekers’ have been as it were ‘hyp-
notized’ almost exclusively by this one; to it are always related all their most fanciful
hypotheses, many of which could better be described as ‘fantastic’, including, to
give only two of the queerest examples, one that attempts to find in its interior
arrangements a map of the sources of the Nile, and another that makes out that the
‘Book of the Dead’ is no more than an explanatory description of those same
arrangements.

258 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

and conforms to the narrowest and most Protestant ‘literalism’,
doubtless because the material had to be adapted to the special
mentality of the environment in which it was to be chiefly circulated
in the first place. Many other curious features could be noted: thus it
appears that no date since the beginning of the Christian era can
have been of sufficient interest to be recorded before that of the
invention of railways; if that were so one would have to believe that
these ancient builders brought a very modern perspective to bear on
their appreciation of the importance of events; in this appears the
element of the grotesque never lacking in that sort of thing, and it
is precisely that which betrays their real origin: the devil is no doubt
very clever, but he can never help being ridiculous in one way or
another ! 10

But this is still not all: from time to time, on the strength of the
‘prophecies of the Great Pyramid’ or of other predictions, and as a
result of calculations of which the basis is never very clearly defined,
it is announced that such and such an exact date will mark ‘the entry

10. Before leaving the subject of the Great Pyramid, attention should be drawn
to another modern fantasy connected with it: some people attach much impor-
tance to the fact that it was never finished; the summit is in fact missing, but all that
can be said for certain about it is that the most ancient authors whose evidence is
available, but who are nevertheless relatively recent, all describe it as truncated, as it
is today; but it is a long step from this to the claim, as expressed word for word by
an occultist, that ‘the hidden symbolism of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is
directly related to events that took place in the course of the building of the Great
Pyramid’; indeed, this is another assertion that seems singularly lacking in plausi-
bility on all counts! It is a strange fact that the official seal of the United States bears
the truncated pyramid, and over it is a triangle with rays, separated and isolated
from it by a surrounding circle of clouds, but apparently intended to replace the
summit. There are other decidedly strange details in this seal as well, and the
‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations rampant in America try to make good use of them
by interpreting them in conformity with their own ‘doctrines’; they certainly seem
to indicate an intervention by suspicious influences: thus, the number of the
courses of the Pyramid is thirteen (this number reappearing somewhat insistendy
in other features, notably that of the letters of which the motto E pluribus unum is
composed) and is alleged to correspond to th.e number of the tribes of Israel (the
two half-tribes of the sons of Joseph being counted separately), and no doubt this
has some connection with the real origin of the ‘prophecies of the Great Pyramid’,
which, as we have seen, tend to treat the Pyramid as a sort of ‘Judeo-Christian’
monument, for reasons that are somewhat obscure.

THE DECEPTIVENESS OF PROPHECIES 259

of humanity into a new era or else ‘the coming of a spiritual
renewal’ (we shall see later on how this must really be understood);
several of these dates are already past, and it does not appear that
anything very notable has happened; but what does all that sort of
thing really signify? In fact, it is just another way of making use of
predictions (additional, that is, to their use for increasing the disor-
der of our times by broadcasting seeds of trouble and disorganiza-
tion), and perhaps not the least important, for it turns them into an
instrument of direct suggestion, thus contributing to the effective
determination of the course of certain future events; for instance, to
take a simple and easily understood example, does anyone believe
that the repeated announcement of a revolution in a particular
country at a particular time will not assist those who have an inter-
est in its breaking out at that time? Underlying the present situation
is the fact that certain people want to create a ‘state of mind’ favor-
able to the realization of ‘something’ that is part of their plans; this
‘something’ can no doubt be modified by the action of contrary infl-
uences, but they hope that their methods will serve to bring it about
a little sooner or a little later. It remains to be shown more exactly to
what this ‘pseudo-spiritual’ enterprise is leading, and it is necessary
to say, without meaning to be in any way ‘pessimistic’ (all the more
so because, as has been explained on other occasions, ‘optimism’
and ‘pessimism’ are opposed sentimental attitudes which as such,
must remain wholly outside the strictly traditional point of view
adopted here), that the outlook for the fairly near future is anything
but reassuring.

38

FROM

ANTI-TRADITION

TO

COUNTER-TRADITION

The previous chapter was concerned with matters that, like
everything else belonging essentially to the modern world, are radi-
cally anti-traditional; but in a sense they go even further than ‘anti-
tradition’, understood as being pure negation and nothing more,
for they lead toward the setting up of something that can more
appropriately be called a ‘counter-tradition’. The distinction
between the two is similar to that made earlier between deviation
and subversion, and it corresponds to the same two phases of anti-
traditional action considered as a whole. ‘Anti-tradition’ found its
most complete expression in the kind of materialism that could
be called ‘integral’, such as that which prevailed toward the end of
the last century; as for the ‘counter-tradition’, we can still only see
the preliminary signs of it, in the form of all the things that are
striving to become counterfeits in one way or another of the tradi-
tional idea itself. It is as well to point out at once that, just as the
tendency to ‘solidification’, expressing itself as ‘anti-tradition’, has
not been able to reach its extreme limit— since that limit would
have been outside and beneath all possible existence— it may be
expected that the same will apply to the tendency to dissolution,
expressing itself in its turn in the ‘counter-tradition’. The very con-
ditions of manifestation, so long as the cycle is not entirely com-
pleted, obviously demand that this should be so; and as far as the
actual end of the cycle is concerned, it presupposes the ‘rectification’

FROM ANTI-TRADITION TO COUNTER-TRADITION 26l

whereby the ‘malefic’ tendencies will be ‘transmuted’ to produce a
definitely ‘benefic’ result, as has already been explained above.
Moreover, all the prophecies (the word is of course used here in its
rightful sense) indicate that the apparent triumph of the ‘counter-
tradition’ will only be a passing one, and that at the very moment
when it seems most complete it will be destroyed by the action of
spiritual influences which will intervene at that point to prepare for
the final ‘rectification ’. 1 Nothing less than a direct intervention of
this kind would in fact suffice to bring to an end, at the chosen time,
the most formidable and the most truly ‘satanic’ of all the possibili-
ties included in cyclical manifestation; but that is enough by way of
anticipation, and it is now necessary to continue with a more care-
ful examination of the real nature of the ‘counter-tradition’.

For this purpose, the part to be played by the ‘counter-initiation’
must again be referred to: after having worked always in the shad-
ows to inspire and direct invisibly all modern movements, it will in
the end contrive to ‘exteriorize’, if that is the right word, something
that will be as it were the counterpart of a true tradition, at least as
completely and as exactly as it can be so within the limitations nec-
essarily inherent in all possible counterfeits as such. Just as initia-
tion is, as explained, the thing that effectively represents the spirit of
a tradition, so will the ‘counter-initiation’ play a comparable part
with respect to the ‘counter-tradition’; but obviously it would be
quite wrong and improper to speak of the spirit in the second case,
since it concerns that from which the spirit is most completely
absent, that which would even be its opposite if the spirit were not
essentially beyond all opposition; nevertheless opposition is
undoubtedly attempted, and is accompanied by imitation in the
manner of the inverted shadow previously referred to on more than

1. To this truth is really related the formula ‘when everything seems lost, then it
is that everything will be saved’, repeated in a sort of mechanical way by a consider-
able number of ‘seers’, each of whom has of course applied it to something he can
understand, usually to events of comparatively minor importance, even to such as
are quite secondary and merely ‘local’, by virtue of the ‘minimizing’ tendency
already mentioned in connection with the stories about the ‘Grand Monarch’, lead-
ing to his being seen as no more than a future king of France; needless to say, real
prophecies are concerned with affairs of quite different dimensions.

262 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

one occasion. That is why the ‘counter-tradition’, however far it car-
ries the imitation, will never succeed in being anything but a par-
ody, but it will be the most extreme and the most gigantic of all
parodies, and we have only so far seen, despite all the falsification of
the modern world, some very partial ‘trials’ and some very pale
‘prefigurations’ of it; something much more formidable is in prepa-
ration for a future considered by some to be near, the growing
rapidity of the succession of events today being an indication of its
proximity. Needless to say, no attempt will be made here to fix on
more or less precise dates, after the fashion of the followers of the
so-called ‘prophecies’; and even if it were possible to do so through
a knowledge of the exact length of cyclical periods (the main diffi-
culty in such cases lying always in the establishment of the right
starting-point to take as a basis of calculation), it would neverthe-
less be proper to maintain the strictest reserve about the results, and
that for reasons exactly contrary to those that actuate the conscious
or unconscious propagators of denatured predictions, that is to say,
in order not to run the risk of contributing to a further growth of
the anxiety and disorder now reigning in our world.

However that may be, the thing that makes it possible for affairs
to reach such a point is that the ‘counter-initiation’ (and this is
something that must be said) cannot be regarded as a purely human
invention, such as would be in no way distinguishable by its nature
from plain ‘pseudo-initiation’; in fact it is much more than that,
and, in order that it may really be so, it must in a certain sense, so far
as its actual origin is concerned, proceed from the unique source
to which all initiation is attached, the very source from which,
speaking more generally, everything in our world that manifests a
‘non-human’ element proceeds; but the ‘counter-initiation’ pro-
ceeds from that source by a degeneration carried to its extreme
limit, and that limit is represented by the ‘inversion’ that constitutes
‘satanism’ properly so called. A degeneration of this kind is obvi-
ously much more profound than is that of a tradition merely devi-
ated to a certain extent, or even truncated and left with only its
lower part; something more is involved even than in cases of dead
traditions so completely abandoned by the spirit that the ‘counter-
initiation’ itself can make use of their ‘residues’ for its own purposes,

FROM ANTI-TRADITION TO COUNTER-TRADITION 263

as explained earlier. This leads logically to the thought that this
extreme degeneration must go a very long way back into the past;
and, however obscure the question of its origins may be, there is
some plausibility in the idea that it may be connected with the per-
version of one of the ancient civilizations belonging to one or
another of the continents that have disappeared in cataclysms
occurring in the course of the present Manvantara . 2 In any case it is
scarcely necessary to say that as soon as the spirit has withdrawn
itself it is no longer possible to speak of initiation; the representa-
tives of the ‘counter-initiation are in fact as completely ignorant as
ordinary profane people, and more irremediably ignorant, of the
essential, in other words, of all truth of a spiritual and metaphysical
order, for this truth has become completely strange to them, even in
its most elementary principles, ever since ‘heaven was closed’ to
them . 3 Since it can neither lead beings toward ‘supra-human’ states
as can initiation, nor confine itself exclusively to the human
domain, the ‘counter-initiation’ inevitably leads them toward the
‘infra-human’, and the power to do so is precisely the only effective
power left to it; it is only too easy to see that this is something quite
different from the comedy of ‘pseudo-initiation’. In Islamic esoter-
ism it is said that one who presents himself at a certain ‘gate’,
without having reached it by a normal and legitimate way, sees it
shut in his face and is obliged to turn back, but not as a mere pro-
fane person, for he can never be such again, but as a saher (a sor-
cerer or a magician working in the domain of subtle possibilities of
an inferior order ). 4 It would be impossible to put the position more
clearly; it is a question of the ‘infernal’ way trying to oppose the
‘celestial’ way, and actually achieving the outward appearances of

2. The sixth chapter of Genesis might perhaps provide, in a symbolical form,
some indications relating to the distant origins of the ‘counter-initiation’.

3. The symbolism of the ‘fall of the angels’ can be applied analogically to the
matter in hand, which corresponds exactly thereto in the human order; and that is
why the word ‘satanic’ can be used in its most precise sense in this connection.

4. The last degree of the ‘counter-initiatic’ hierarchy is occupied by what are
called the ‘saints of Satan’ ( awliya ’ al-shaytan) who are in a sense the inverse of the
true saints ( awliya ’ al-Rahman)-, thus manifesting the most complete expression
possible of ‘inverted spirituality’ (cf. The Symbolism of the Cross).

264 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

opposition, although such appearances can only be illusory; and, as
was pointed out earlier when speaking of the false spirituality in
which some beings, who are engaged in a sort of ‘inverted realiza-
tion’, lose themselves, this way can only end at last in the total ‘disin-
tegration’ of the conscious being and in its final dissolution . 5

Naturally, in order that the imitation by inverted reflection may
be as complete as possible, centers are likely to be established to
which the organizations appertaining to the ‘counter-initiation’ will
be attached. These centers will of course be purely ‘psychic’, like the
influences they use and transmit, and in no sense spiritual, like the
centers of initiation and of the true tradition, but they will be able,
for the reasons given, to assume up to a point the outward appear-
ance of spiritual centers, thus producing the illusion characteristic
of ‘inverted spirituality’. But there need be no cause for surprise if
these centers themselves, and not merely some of the organizations
that are more or less directly subordinated to them, are found to be
engaged in struggles one with another, for the domain in which they
are placed is the nearest domain of all to ‘chaotic’ dissolution, and
therefore all oppositions are given free rein in it, and are not harmo-
nized and reconciled by the direct action of a superior principle,
necessarily lacking in such case. The result often is an impression of
confusion and incoherence in everything connected with the mani-
festations of these centers and their offshoots, and that impression is
certainly not illusory; it is even a characteristic ‘mark’ of such
things; they can only agree as it were negatively, in the common
struggle against the true spiritual centers, insofar as the latter are sit-
uated on a level at which such a struggle can take place, that is to say
only insofar as they are concerned with a domain that does not
extend beyond the limits of our individual state . 6 It is here that what

5. A finality so conclusive of course represents only an exceptional case, which
is that of the awliya’ al-shaytan ; the fate of those who have gone less far in the same
direction is only that of being abandoned on a road that leads nowhere, to which
they may be confined for the indefinity of an ‘jieon’ or cycle.

6. From the initiatic point of view this domain is that of what are known as the
‘lesser mysteries’; on the other hand, everything connected with the ‘greater mys-
teries’ is essentially of a ‘supra-human’ order, and is thereby out of range of any

FROM ANTI-TRADITION TO COUNTER-TRADITION 265

can properly be called the ‘stupidity of the devil’ becomes apparent:
the representatives of the ‘counter- initiation’ who act in this way are
deluded into thinking that they are opposing the spirit itself, though
nothing can really be opposed to it; but at the same time, in spite of
themselves and unknown to themselves, they are really subordi-
nated to it and can never cease to be so, just as everything that exists
is submitted, albeit unconsciously and involuntarily, to the divine
Will, from which nothing can escape. Thus they too are in fact being
made use of, though against their will, and though they may them-
selves hold an exactly contrary belief, for the realization of ‘the
divine plan in the human domain’; 7 like all other beings they take
the part in that plan that suits their nature, but instead of being
effectively conscious of that part, as are the true initiates, they are
only conscious of its negative and inverse aspect. Thus they them-
selves are dupes, and in a way that is much worse for them than is
the mere ignorance of the profane, since, instead of keeping them as
it were at the same point, it has the effect of driving them ever fur-
ther away from the principial center, until finally they fall into ‘outer
darkness’. But if the affair is looked at, not in relation to these beings
themselves, but in relation to the world as a whole, it must be
allowed that they are necessary in the place they occupy as elements
in that whole, like all other beings, and as ‘providential’ instruments
(to use theological language) in the passage of the world through its
cycle of manifestation, for all partial disorders, even when they
appear in a certain sense to be the supreme disorder, must nonethe-
less necessarily contribute in some way to the total order.

These few considerations should make it easier to understand
why the constitution of a ‘counter-tradition’ is possible, but also
why it can never be otherwise than eminently unstable and almost
ephemeral, but this does not prevent its actually being in itself, as
was said earlier, the most redoubtable of all possibilities. It will also

such opposition, since it belongs to the domain which is by its very nature abso-
lutely closed and inaccessible to the ‘counter-initiation’ and to its representatives at
all levels.

7. Al-Tadab r al-ilahiyyah fi'l-mamlakat al-insdniyyah, title of a treatise of
Muhyi’ d-DIn ibn al-‘Arabi.

266 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

be understood that this is the goal at which the ‘counter-initiation’
really aims and has always aimed throughout the whole course of its
activity, and that the merely negative ‘anti-tradition’ only repre-
sented a necessary preparation. It now only remains to investigate
rather more closely what can be foreseen, with the help of various
concordant indications, of the modalities in which the ‘counter-tra-
dition’ is likely to be realized in the future.

39

THE GREAT PARODY:
OR SPIRITUALITY
INVERTED

From everything that has been said so far it is easy to
deduce that the setting up of the ‘counter-tradition’ and its apparent
momentary triumph will in effect be the reign of what has been
called ‘inverted spirituality’; this last is of course only a parody of
spirituality, imitating it so to speak in an inverse sense, so as to
appear to be its very opposite; it appears to be its opposite, but is
not really so, for whatever may be its pretensions no symmetry or
equivalence between the one and the other is possible. This point
must be insisted on, for many people allow themselves to be
deceived by appearances, and imagine that there exist in the world
two contrary principles contesting against one another for suprem-
acy; this is an erroneous conception, identical to that commonly
attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the Manicheans, and consisting, to
use theological language, in putting Satan on the same level as God.
There are certainly nowadays many people who are ‘Manicheans’ in
this sense without knowing it, and this too is the effect of a ‘sugges-
tion’ as pernicious as any. The conception concerned amounts to
the affirmation of a fundamentally irreducible principial duality, or
in other words, to a denial of the supreme Unity that is beyond all
oppositions and all antagonisms; that such a denial should be made
by adherents of the ‘counter-initiation’ need cause no surprise, and
it may even be sincere on their part, since the metaphysical domain
is completely closed to them: it is therefore all the more evidently
necessary for them to propagate the conception and to impose it on

268 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

others, for in no other way can they succeed in getting themselves
taken for what they are not and what they can never really be,
namely, representatives of something that could be put on a level
with spirituality and might eventually prevail over it.

This ‘inverted spirituality’ is thus in very truth only a false spiritu-
ality, but it is false to the most extreme degree conceivable; false
spirituality can be spoken of in every case in which, for example, the
psychic is mistaken for the spiritual, without necessarily going as far
as total subversion, and that is why the expression ‘inverted spiritu-
ality’ is certainly best suited for designating total subversion, pro-
vided that the way in which it must be understood is precisely
specified. It is in fact identifiable with the ‘spiritual renewal’ the near
approach of which is persistently announced by people who are
often quite unaware of its real nature; or again, it is the ‘new age’,
into which the present humanity is being driven by all available
means , 1 and the general state of ‘expectation’ created by the diffu-
sion of the predictions alluded to above may well contribute effec-
tively toward hastening its arrival. The attraction of ‘phenomena’,
already taken account of as one of the determining factors in the
confusion of the psychic and the spiritual, may also play a very
important part, for most men will be caught and deceived by it in
the time of the ‘counter-tradition’, since it is said that the ‘false
prophets’ who will arise at that time shall ‘show great signs and
wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect .’ 2

It is particularly in this connection that the manifestations of
‘metapsychics’ and of the various forms of ‘neo-spiritualism’ may
even now be taken as a sort of ‘prefiguration’ of what must happen
later, though they only give a very slight idea of it. In principle, the
action of the same inferior subtle forces will be involved, but those
forces will be set to work with incomparably greater strength; and
when one sees how many people are always ready blindly to place

1. The extent to which the expression ‘new age’ has in these days been spread
about and repeated in all quarters is almost unbelievable, with a significance that
can often appear to be different in different cases, but it always tends positively to
the establishment of the same persuasion in the mentality of the public.

2. Matt. 24:24.

THE GREAT PARODY: OR SPIRITUALITY INVERTED 269

complete confidence in all the divagations of a mere ‘medium’,
simply because they are supported by ‘phenomena’, it is not surpris-
ing that seduction will then be more general. That is why it can
never be said often enough that ‘phenomena’ by themselves prove
absolutely nothing where the truth of a doctrine or of any sort of
teaching is concerned, and that ‘phenomena’ are the special domain
of the ‘great illusion’, wherein everything that people so readily take
to be signs of ‘spirituality’ can always be simulated and counter-
feited by the play of the inferior forces in question. This is perhaps
the only field in which the imitation may be really perfect, because
the very same ‘phenomena’ (the word being taken in its proper sense
of outward appearances), will in fact be produced in both cases, the
difference lying only in the nature of the causes engaged in each. The
great majority of men are inevitably unable to determine the nature
of these causes, so that there is no doubt that the best thing to do is
not to attach the slightest importance to anything ‘phenomenal’, or
perhaps better still to regard it a priori as an unfavorable sign; but
how can this be made comprehensible to the ‘experimental’ mental-
ity of our contemporaries, a mentality first fashioned by the ‘scien-
tistic’ point of view of the ‘anti-tradition’, and finally becoming one
of the most potentially effective contributing factors in the success
of the ‘counter-tradition’?

‘Neo-spiritualism’ and the ‘pseudo-initiation’ proceeding from it
are also from another point of view as it were a partial ‘prefigura-
tion’ of the ‘counter-tradition’. Reference has already been made to
the utilization of elements authentically traditional in origin, per-
verted from their true meaning, and then to some extent brought
into the service of error; this perversion is only a move in the direc-
tion of the complete reversal that must characterize the ‘counter-tra-
dition’ (the case of the intentional reversal of symbols dealt with
earlier being a significant example); but at that time there will no
longer be only a few fragmentary and scattered elements involved,
because it will be necessary to produce the illusion of something
comparable, indeed of something intended by its authors to be
equivalent, to that which constitutes the integrality of a real tradi-
tion, including its outward applications in all domains. It may be
observed in this connection that the ‘counter-initiation’, although it

270 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

invented and propagated for its own purposes all the modern ideas
that together represent the merely negative anti-tradition’, is per-
fectly conscious of the falsity of those ideas, and obviously knows all
too well what attitude to adopt with respect to them; but that in
itself indicates that the intention in propagating them can only have
been the accomplishment of a transitory and preliminary phase, for
no such enterprise of conscious falsehood could be in itself the true
and only aim in view; it was only intended to prepare for the ulti-
mate coming of something different, something that should appear
to constitute a more positive’ accomplishment, namely, the
‘counter-tradition’ itself. This is why one can already see sketched
out, in various productions of indubitably ‘counter- initiatic’ origin
or inspiration, the idea of an organization that would be like the
counterpart, but by the same token also the counterfeit, of a tradi-
tional conception such as that of the ‘Holy Empire’, and some such
organization must become the expression of the ‘counter-tradition’
in the social order; and for similar reasons the Antichrist must
appear like something that could be called, using the language of the
Hindu tradition, an inverted Chakravarti . 3

The reign of the ‘counter-tradition’ is in fact precisely what is
known as the ‘reign of Antichrist’, and the Antichrist, indepen-
dently of all possible preconceptions, is in any case that which will
concentrate and synthesize in itself for this final task all the powers
of the ‘counter-initiation’, whether it be conceived as an individual
or as a collectivity. It could even, in a certain sense, be both at the
same time, for there must be a collectivity that will be as it were the

3. On the subject of the Chakravarti or ‘universal monarch’ see The Esoterism of
Dante, and The King of the World. The Chakravarti is literally ‘he who makes the
wheel turn’, and this implies that he is situated at the center of all things, whereas
the Antichrist is on the contrary the being who will be situated furthest from that
center; he will nevertheless claim to ‘make the wheel turn’, but in a direction oppo-
site to that of the normal cyclic movement (incidentally, this is ‘prefigured’ uncon-
sciously in the modern idea of ‘progress’), whereas in fact no change in the rotation
is possible before the ‘reversal of the poles’, that is before the ‘rectification’ that can
only be brought about by the intervention of the tenth Avatara ; moreover the Anti-
christ will parody in his own way the very function of the final Avatara, who is rep-
resented as the ‘second coming of Christ’ in the Christian tradition.

THE GREAT PARODY: OR SPIRITUALITY INVERTED 2J\

exteriorization’ of the ‘counter-initiatic’ organization itself when it
finally appears in the light of day, and there must also be a person
who will be at the head of the collectivity, and as such be the most
complete expression and even the very ‘incarnation’ of what it will
represent, if only in the capacity of ‘support’ to all the malefic influ-
ences that he will first concentrate in himself and then project onto
the world . 4 He will obviously be an ‘imposter’ (this is the meaning
of the word dajjal by which he is usually designated in Arabic) since
his reign will be nothing other than the ‘Great Parody’ in its com-
pletest form, the ‘satanic’ imitation and caricature of everything
that is truly traditional and spiritual; nevertheless he will be made
in such a way, so to speak, that it will be entirely impossible for him
not to play that part. His time will certainly no longer be the ‘reign
of quantity’, which was itself only the end-point of the ‘anti-tradi-
tion’; it will on the contrary be marked, under the pretext of a false
‘spiritual restoration’, by a sort of reintroduction of quality in all
things, but of quality inverted with respect to its normal and legiti-
mate significance . 5 After the egalitarianism’ of our times there will
again be a visibly established hierarchy, but an inverted hierarchy,
indeed a real ‘counter-hierarchy’, the summit of which will be occu-
pied by the being who will in reality be situated nearer than any
other being to the very bottom of the ‘pit of hell’.

This being, even if he appears in the form of a particular single
human being, will really be less an individual than a symbol, and
he will be as it were the synthesis of all the symbolism that has been
inverted for the purposes of the ‘counter-initiation’, and he will

4. He can therefore be regarded as the chief of the awliya al-shaytan, and as he
will be the last to fulfill that function, and at the same time his function will then
have its most manifest importance in the world, it can be said that he will be as it
were their ‘seal’ ( khatim ), according to the terminology of Islamic esoterism; it is
not difficult to see from this to what point the parody of the tradition will be car-
ried in all its aspects.

5. Money itself, or whatever may take its place, will once more possess a qualita-
tive character of this sort, for it is said that ‘no one can buy or sell unless he has the
mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name’ (Rev. 13:17), and this
implies the actual use in connection with money of the inverted symbols of the
‘counter-tradition’.

272 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

manifest it all the more completely in himself because he will have
neither predecessor nor successor. In order to express the false car-
ried to its extreme he will have to be so to speak ‘falsified’ from every
point of view, and to be like an incarnation of falsity itself . 6 In order
that this may be possible, and by reason of his extreme opposition
to the true in all its aspects, the Antichrist can adopt the very sym-
bols of the Messiah, using them of course in an inverted sense ; 7 and
the predominance accorded to the ‘malefic’ aspect, or, more accu-
rately, its substitution for the ‘benefic’ aspect by the subversion of
the double meaning of symbols, is what constitutes his characteris-
tic mark. In the same way there can be and must be a strange resem-
blance between the designations of the Messiah ( al-maslh in
Arabic) and of the Antichrist ( al-maslkh ); 8 but the latter are really
only deformations of the former, just as the Antichrist is repre-
sented as deformed in all the more or less symbolical descriptions
that have been given of him, and this again is very significant. These
descriptions indeed particularly emphasize the bodily asymmetries,
and this implies essentially that they are the visible signs of the
actual nature of the being to whom they are attributed, for such
things are in fact always signs of some interior disequilibrium; this
is why certain deformities constitute ‘disqualifications’ from the
initiatic point of view, but at the same time it can easily be imagined
that they are ‘qualifications’ in the opposite sense, that is, from the
point of view of ‘counter-initiation’. The very name of the latter

6. Thus he will be the antithesis of the Christ saying ‘1 am the Truth’, or of a wall
like al-Hallaj saying in the same wsy‘ana’l-Haqq\

7. ‘The analogy existing between the true doctrine and the false has perhaps not
received sufficient attention: St. Hippolytus, in his little work on the Antichrist
gives a memorable example of it which will not be surprising to people who have
studied symbolism: the Messiah and the Antichrist both have as their emblem the
lion.’ (P. Vulliaud, La Kabbale Juive, vol. n, P373) The profound reason from the
kabbalistic point of view lies in the consideration of the two faces, luminous and
obscure, of Metatron; it is also why the Apocalyptic number 666, the ‘number of the
Beast’, is also a solar number (cf. The King of the. World).

8. Here there is an untranslatable double meaning: Masikh can be taken as a
deformation of Masiha, by the mere addition of a dot to the final letter; but at the
same time the first word means ‘deformed’, which correctly expresses the character
of the Antichrist.

THE GREAT PARODY: OR SPIRITUALITY INVERTED TJ 3

implies that it moves in opposition to initiation, consequently in
the direction of an increase in the disequilibrium of beings, leading
finally to the ‘dissolution or ‘disintegration’ previously referred to.
The Antichrist must evidently be as near as it is possible to be to
‘disintegration’, so that one could say that his individuality, while it
is developed in a monstrous fashion, is nevertheless at the same
time almost annihilated, thus realizing the inverse of the effacement
of the ‘ego’ before the ‘Self’, or in other words, realizing confusion
in ‘chaos’ as against fusion in principial Unity; and this state, as rep-
resented by the very deformity and disproportion of his bodily
shape, is actually at the lower limit of the possibilities of our indi-
vidual state, so that the summit of the ‘counter-hierarchy’ is indeed
the place that really befits him in the ‘world upside down’ that will
be his. Furthermore, even from a purely symbolical point of view,
and inasmuch as he represents the ‘counter-tradition’, the Antichrist
is no less necessarily deformed: it has been explained that the
‘counter-tradition’ can only be a caricature of the tradition, and
caricature implies deformation; moreover, if it were otherwise,
there would be no outward means of distinguishing the ‘counter-
tradition’ from the true tradition, but the former must bear in itself
the ‘mark of the devil’, so that at least the ‘elect’ may not be seduced.
Besides this, the false is necessarily also the ‘artificial’, and in this
respect the ‘counter-tradition’ cannot fail, despite its other charac-
teristics, to retain the ‘mechanical’ character appertaining to all the
productions of the modern world, of which it will itself be the last;
still more exactly, there will be something in it comparable to the
automatism of the ‘psychic corpses’ spoken of earlier, and like them
it will be constituted of ‘residues’ animated artificially and momen-
tarily, and this again explains why it can contain nothing durable;
a heap of ‘residues’, galvanized, so to speak, by an ‘infernal’ will:
surely nothing could give a clearer idea of what it is to have reached
the very edge of dissolution.

There seems to be no occasion to dwell further on these matters;
it would be of little use in the end to seek to foresee in detail how
the ‘counter-tradition’ will be constituted, and the general indica-
tions already given should be almost enough for anyone who wants
to devise for himself their application to particular points and any

274 THE reign of quantity

such attempt being in any case beyond the scope of the present
enquiry. That enquiry has now been extended to the final stage of
the anti -traditional action that must lead this world toward its end;
between the fleeting reign of the ‘counter-tradition and the final
moment of the present cycle there can only be the ‘rectification’,
which will suddenly put back all things into their normal place at
the very moment when subversion seems complete, thus at one
stroke preparing for the ‘golden age’ of the future cycle.

40

THE END
OF A WORLD

The various matters dealt with in the course of this study
together constitute what may, in a general way, be called the ‘signs
of the times’ in the Gospel sense, in other words, the precursory
signs of the ‘end of a world’ or of a cycle. This end only appears to
be the ‘end of the world’, without any reservation or specification of
any kind, to those who see nothing beyond the limits of this partic-
ular cycle; a very excusable error of perspective it is true, but one
that has nonetheless some regrettable consequences in the excessive
and unjustified terrors to which it gives rise in those who are not
sufficiently detached from terrestrial existence; and naturally they
are the very people who form this erroneous conception most eas-
ily, just because of the narrowness of their point of view. In truth
there can be many ‘ends of the world’, because there are cycles of
very varied duration, contained as it were one within another, and
also because this same notion can always be applied analogically at
all degrees and at all levels; but it is obvious that these ‘ends’ are of
very unequal importance, as are the cycles themselves to which they
belong; and in this connection it must be acknowledged that the
end now under consideration is undeniably of considerably greater
importance than many others, for it is the end of a whole Manvant-
ara, and so of the temporal existence of what may rightly be called a
humanity, but this, it must be said once more, in no way implies
that it is the end of the terrestrial world itself, because, through the
‘rectification’ that takes place at the final instant, this end will itself
immediately become the beginning of another Manvantara.

276 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

While on this subject, there is yet one more point needing to be
explained more precisely: the partisans of ‘progress’ have a habit of
saying that the ‘golden age’ is not in the past but in the future; nev-
ertheless the truth is that so far as our own Manvantara is con-
cerned it is in the past, for it is nothing other than the ‘primordial
state’ itself. There is a sense however in which it is both in the past
and in the future, but only on condition that attention is not con-
fined to the present Manvantara but is extended to include the suc-
cession of terrestrial cycles, for insofar as the future is concerned
nothing but the ‘golden age’ of another Manvantara can possibly be
in question; it is therefore separated from our period by a ‘barrier’
completely insurmountable to the profane people who say that sort
of thing, and they have no idea what they are talking about when
they announce the near approach of a ‘new age’ as being one with
which the existing humanity will be concerned. Their error, in its
most extreme form, will be that of the Antichrist himself when he
claims to bring the ‘golden age’ into being through the reign of the
‘counter-tradition’, and when he even gives it an appearance of
authenticity, purely deceitful and ephemeral though it be, by means
of a counterfeit of the traditional idea of the Sanctum Regnum\ this
makes clear the reason for the aforesaid preponderant part played
by ‘evolutionist’ conceptions in all the ‘pseudo-traditions’, and
although these ‘pseudo-traditions’ are still but very partial and very
feeble ‘prefigurations’ of the ‘counter-tradition’, yet they are no
doubt unconsciously contributing more directly than anything else
to the preparations for its arrival. The ‘barrier’ recently alluded to,
which in a sense compels those for whom it exists to confine them-
selves entirely to the interior of the present cycle, is of course a still
more insuperable obstacle to the representatives of the ‘counter-ini-
tiation’ than it is to those who are merely profane, for the former
are oriented wholly toward dissolution, and so they above all are
those for whom nothing can exist outside the present cycle, and it is
therefore more particularly for them that the end of the cycle must
really be the ‘end of the world’ in the must complete sense that the
expression can bear.

This raises another related question on which a few words should
be said, although an answer is really contained implicitly in some of

THE END OF A WORLD IJJ

the considerations previously dealt with, and it is this: to what
extent are the people who most fully represent the ‘counter-initia-
tion’ effectively conscious of the part they are playing, and to what
extent are they on the other hand but the tools of a will surpassing
their own and therefore hidden from them, though they be inescap-
ably subordinated to it? In accordance with what has been said
above, the limits between the two points of view from which their
action can be envisaged is necessarily determined by the limits of
the spiritual world, into which they can in no way penetrate; they
may possess a knowledge of the possibilities of the ‘intermediary
world’ as extensive as anyone cares to think, but this knowledge will
nevertheless always be irremediably falsified by the absence of the
spirit, which alone could give it its true meaning. Obviously such
beings can never be mechanists or materialists, nor even partisans
of ‘progress’ or ‘evolutionists’ in the popular sense of the words, and
when they promulgate in the world the ideas which these words
express, they are practicing a conscious deceit; but these ideas con-
cern only the merely negative ‘anti-tradition’, which for them is but
a means and not an end, and they could, just like anyone else, seek
to excuse their deception by saying that ‘the end justifies the means’.
Their error is of a much more profound order than that of the men
whom they influence and to whom they apply ‘suggestion’ by means
of those ideas, for it arises in no other way than as the consequence
of their total and invincible ignorance of the true nature of all spiri-
tuality; this makes it much more difficult to say exactly up to what
point they may be conscious of the falsity of the ‘counter-tradition’
they aim at setting up, for they may really believe that in doing so
they are opposing the spirit as manifested in every normal and reg-
ular tradition, and that they are situated on the same level as those
who represent it in this world; and in this sense the Antichrist must
surely be the most ‘deluded’ of all beings. This delusion has its root
in the ‘dualist’ error referred to earlier; dualism is found in one
form or another in all beings whose horizon does not extend
beyond certain limits even if the limits are those of the entire mani-
fested world; such people cannot resolve the duality they see in all
things lying within those limits by referring it to a superior princi-
ple, and so they think that it is really irreducible and are thereby led

278 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

to a denial of the Supreme Unity, which indeed for them is as if it
were not. For this reason it has been possible to say that the repre-
sentatives of the ‘counter-initiation’ are in the end the dupes of the
part they themselves are playing, and that their delusion is in truth
the worst delusion of all, since it is positively the only one whereby a
being can be not merely led more or less seriously astray, but actu-
ally irremediably lost; nonetheless, if they were not so deluded they
would clearly not be fulfilling a function that must be fulfilled, like
every other function, so that the Divine plan may be accomplished
in this world.

This leads back to the consideration of the twofold, or ‘benefic’
and ‘malefic’ aspect of the whole history of the world, seen as a
cyclic manifestation; and this is really the ‘key’ to all traditional
explanations of the conditions under which this manifestation is
developed, especially when it is being considered, as at present, in
the period leading directly to its end. On the one hand, if this mani-
festation is simply taken by itself, without relating it to a much
greater whole, the entire process from its beginning to its end is
clearly a progressive ‘descent’ or ‘degradation’, and this is what may
be called its ‘malefic’ aspect; but, on the other hand, the same mani-
festation, when put back into the whole of which it is a part, pro-
duces results that have a truly ‘positive’ result in universal existence;
and its development must be carried right to the end, so as to
include a development of the inferior possibilities of the ‘dark age’,
in order that the ‘integration’ of those results may become possible
and may become the immediate principle of another cycle of mani-
festation; this is what constitutes its ‘benefic’ aspect. The same
applies when the very end of the cycle is considered: from the special
point of view of that which must then be destroyed because its man-
ifestation is finished and as it were exhausted, the end is naturally
‘catastrophic’ in the etymological sense, in which the word evokes
the idea of a sudden and irretrievable ‘fall’; but, on the other hand,
from the point of view according to which manifestation, in disap-
pearing as such, is brought back to its principle so far as all that is
positive in its existence is concerned, this same end appears on the
contrary as the ‘rectification’ whereby, as explained, all things are no
less suddenly re-established in their ‘primordial state’. Moreover this

THE END OF A WORLD 279

can be applied analogically to all degrees, whether a being or a world
is in question: in short, it is always the partial point of view that is
‘malefic’, and the point of view that is total, or relatively total with
respect to the other, that is ‘benefic’, because all possible disorders
are only disorders when they are considered in themselves and ‘sep-
aratively’, and because these partial disorders are completely effaced
in the presence of the total order into which they are finally merged,
constituting, when stripped of their ‘negative’ aspect, elements in
that order comparable to all others; there is indeed nothing that is
‘malefic’ except the limitation that necessarily conditions all contin-
gent existence, and this limitation as such has in reality but a purely
negative existence. The two points of view, respectively ‘benefic’ and
‘malefic’, have been spoken of earlier as if they were in some way
symmetrical; but it is easy to understand that they are nothing of the
kind, and that the second signifies only something that is unstable
and transitory, whereas only that which the first represents has a
permanent and positive character, so that the ‘benefic’ aspect cannot
but prevail in the end, while the ‘malefic’ aspect vanishes completely
because it was in reality only an illusion inherent in ‘separativity’.
Nevertheless, the truth is that it then becomes no longer proper to
use the word ‘benefic’ any more than the word ‘malefic’, for the two
terms are essentially correlative and cannot properly be used to
indicate an opposition when it no longer exists, for it belongs, like
all oppositions, exclusively to a particular relative and limited
domain; as soon as the limits of that domain are overstepped, there
is only that which is, and which cannot not be, or be other than it is;
and so it comes about that, if one does not stop short of the most
profound order of reality, it can be said in all truth that the ‘end of a
world’ never is and never can be anything but the end of an illusion.

INDEX

Adam 145 114
agnosticism 103, 126 n2
animism 179-181
Antichrist 270-273, 277
Aristotle 12-14, 16-17
astrology 72
Atlantis 132

atom (ism) 8, 21, 32 n2, 48, 76,

96, 122, 126
atomic 49, 167
Avatara 254 n2, 270 n3
awliya al-Shaytan 263-264, 271
r>4

awliya' al- Rahman 263 n4

Basil Valentine 140 n9
Bentham, Jeremy 111 n4
Bergson(ian) 92-94, 115, 220-227,
240

black magic 206
Blake, William 30 mo
Brahma 13 n 2
Buddhist 63

Cain and Abel 144-151, 160
Cartesian 21, 31, 33, 77, 90, 92, 96,
98, 103, 121, 180, 202 ni, 235
castes 62-63, 146 n5
Celts 107-108
Chakravarti 270
China 140 mo
Chinese 8, 41 n2, 174
Christ 270 n3, 272 n6
Christian 56, 63, 100, 131, 258, 270
n 3

Christianity 257

clairvoyants 115, 126, 247
Compagnonnage 65 n3
Coomaraswamy, A.K. 24-27, 30
mo, 63 n2, 67 n5, 110 n2, 146
n6, 182 n2

dajjal 271

democracy 51, 79, 82, 87, 199
Democritus 96

Descartes 20-21, 25, 31-32, 38, 50,
89-91, 96-99, 166, 180, 194
devil worshippers 183
d’Olivet, Fabre 138 n4, 147 n8
Druids 108

dualism 77, 96, 98, 202 n i, 235,
267, 277

Duquet, Roger 256 n8
Eckhart 67 n 5

egalitarian(ism) 51, 66, 86, 91,
199, 271

Egypt 186 ni, 250, 257
Egyptian(s) 250, 257
Einstein 227 n 1
empiricism 70
Epicurus 96

evolutionism 221, 276-277

fetishism 181
Fu Hsi 140 n9, 174
fourth dimension 126-127, 160-
161

Freud, Sigmund 227-228, 232
Gog and Magog 173, 175
Golden Dawn, Order of 224 n4
Granet, Marcel 41 n 2

282 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

Great Pyramid 256-258
Great Triad 140 n 10
Great White Lodge 249
Greek(s) 12 m, 27, 30, 92

al-Hallaj 272116

Hebrew 28, 75 n 2, 147, 152-153,

258 mo

Hermetic 139-140
Hermetism 168
Hindu:

doctrine 11, 15, 57, 66, 140
tradition 1, 12, 25, 28, 30 mo,
139 n7, 142, 148 mo, 160 ni,
172-3, 270
Holy Empire 270
humanism 103, 193, 197, 212
hypergeometry 126

individualism 8, 62, 90
immanentism 239
Iran 146
Islamic:

civilization 56
doctrine 242 n 1
esoterism 263, 271 n4
rites 157 n9

tradition 139 ns 6 and 7, 160 ni,
173

Israel 147, 153, 257-258

James, William 220, 222, 226
Jerusalem 147, 153
Jews 145 n2, 227 ni
Judaism 257

Judeo-Christian 257-258
Ka’bah 139 n7

Kabbalah 28, 139 n7, 157 mo, 168
n 2, 248

Kabires 154-155, 157

Kali-Yuga 1, 84, 132, 174
Kant 36, 126 n2
Kether 139 n7

Leibnitz 30, 34 n4, 50-51, 76 n3,
96-97,121
Locke 92

Lokaloka 172 n 1, 232 n 6
Louis XVII 254 n4
lycanthropy 183

MacGregor Mathers, S.S.L. 224
n 4

magic(ian) 153, 168, 181-183, 185—
187, 206, 223-226, 234, 263
magnetism 125, 169
Mahdi 254 n2
Manicheans 267
mantra(s) 148 mo, 206
Manvantara(s) 3, 42, 128, 132, 143,
168 n2, 263, 275-276
materialism 20-21, 96-101, 103-
104, 106, 113, 117-118, 124, 149
m2, 165, 169-171, 173, 180, 194-
195, 197, 201, 215, 217, 219, 221,
260

Melchizedek 150 ni4
metapsychic(s) 170, 217-219, 229,
268

Me tat r on 272 n7
Moksha 64
Montsalvat 160 n 2
Muhyi’d-Dln ibn al-Arabl 63 ni,
265 n7
mula 16 ni
muladhara 139 n7
Myers 229 n3

nama 12, 66
nama-rupa 24, 63
naturalism 239

INDEX 283

naturism 199
necromancy 190
Neoplatonic 27

neo-spiritualism: see spiritualism
Nirvana 64
Niu-Koua 174
nomadism 144-151, 227 m
Nostradamus 255 ns

occultism 124, 127
Om 28
ordo 27 n 4

pantheism 239
paradesha 163
Pardes 163
Pascal 80

Philip the Fair 108 ni
Plato 6, 14, 24 m, 29, 59
Platonic 14, 27, 53, 59
Pliny 135 ni
positivism 103, 117
pragmatism 105
Prakriti 11, 15-16, 24, 140, 150
Pr£au, Andre 233 n8
Protestant(ism) 77, 89, 193, 212,
258

Protestants 222
Psychoanalysis 227-234
Purusha 11, 24, 140, 150
Pythagorean(s) 20, 29, 143 ni8
Pythagorean numbers 5, 14
Pythagorism 29

radiaesthesia 125, 231
Ramakrishna 158 m2
Rationalism 89-95
Rebis 140 n 9
Renaissance 193
Rg-Veda 30
rita 27, 57

Romans 92
Rosicrucian 249-250
ar-Rtih 139 n6
rupa 12, 66

Saint Thomas Aquinas 14, 19-20,

75 ni

Satan 4, 198, 241-242, 263 n4, 267
satanism 183, 239, 262
scholastic(s) 12-13, 15-18, 21, 23,
45-47. 50, 67, 74-75, 91 n 3
scholasticism 46, 75 n 1
Schuon, Frithjof 146 n 6
sedentarism 144-151
serpent-worship 205
Shaytan 188 n2, 242 ni
shaman(ism) 177-184, 188
Soma 150 n 14

sorcery 153, 177-184, 206, 234
spiritualism 123-125, 169, 215-219,
226, 229, 235, 237, 241, 268-269
statistics 68-73, 144
superstitions 144 n 1, 178, 223, 226
svadharma 57
swastika 203 n3
syncretism 245, 247-248

Taoist 233

Tarot 255

Templars 108 n 1

Tetraktys 143 n 18

Theosophist(s) 124, 126, 223, 247,

249

Torah 146

totemism 182, 232 n7
Tubalcain 148, 154 n6

United States, seal of 258 mo

Vedanta 84-85
Vedic rites 150 n 14, 182

284 THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

Vishnu 28

Vishvakarma 30 n 10
Vulcan 154 n6

Wagner 160 n2
Waite, A. E. 224 n4

Yama 160 ni

yantra{s) 6, 148 mo
Yeats, W. B. 224 n4
Yoga 229, 233, 236
Yugas 42, 143 n 18, 159

zodiac 41 ni, 142
Zoroastrian(ism) 154 ns

LaVergne, TN USA
07 January 2010

1 69 1 73LV00002B/9/A

9 " 780900 " 588679 '

R ene Guenon (1886-1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose
critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion.

His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for
the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures
ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and
Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the
reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed
tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the
summit of spiritual realization.

The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times is Rene Guenons most prophetic work, which only
becomes more relevant with each passing year. Having seen his telling analysis of Western culture,

The Crisis of the Modern World, swiftly overtaken by events. Guenon based this his final and most pro-
found critique squarely on changeless metaphysical principles. But to unite social criticism with
metaphysics is to beget eschatology, and so, whereas in Crisis Guenon foresaw the end of Western civ-
ilization, in Reign he presents us with the end of a vaster world-age, or Manvantara, that began before
the dawn of history as we know it.

Guenon bases his critique on abstract' principles, but his examples are satisfyingly concrete. His
chapter The Degeneration of Coinage could easily be updated to include the transformation of
money into a web of electronically-stored information, while in its treatment of the occult dangers of
metallurgy The Significance of Metallurgy points directly to our own well-founded fear of such man-
made elements as plutonium. And his Cracks in the Great Wall gives solid metaphysical grounding
to our twentieth-century century demonology, including the UFO phenomenon. The Reign of
Quantity presents a vision of the End Times that in no way contradicts traditional eschatologies, but
is one key to their deeper meaning.

si

3

ft

The Col > ks oj Rene Guenon brings together the writings of one of the greatest prophets of our

time, jvh< voice is even more important today than when he was alive.

Huston Smith, The World’s Religions

Man) Gi nons books, notably The Reign oj Quantity, are such potent and detailed metaphysica
attack -nli downward drift of Western civilization as to make all other contemporary critiques. .
seer; hal hearted by comparison.

Jacob Needleman, The Sword oj Gnosis
$ 21.95

ISBN D-TDOSafl-bT-fi

SP

SOPHIA PERENNIS

Rene Guenon The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of th<